Really Screwed Up Future
by dragonkeeper19600
Summary: It's been ten years since Irken Invader ZIM conquered planet Earth, and two humans are on a quest to save it. How? By going back in time and preventing what was never possible. Past and future collide in this epic tale of the crappy future that is ZIM.
1. It Starts

**Really Screwed Up Future**

**It Starts**

They ran through the night. Over the rugged and wasted terrain they practically glided, such was their speed. One in front of the other, they looked to all the world like a pair of specters moving single file under the ever-darkening sky.

Of course, if all the world knew they were here, then their journey would come to an abrupt end. For the grounds they now tread were forbidden; everyone knew that. It was one of the many rules that had been imposed on them since Then, since the final fall of their world. But this rule was different. When it came to breaking the other rules, it was only a question of who was the more daring, who was more willing to push their dictator as far as he would go before he snapped. But this rule was far more than that, for to step on these grounds was to ensure a slow and painful death.

But, apparently, death did not faze the two specters, who showed no sign of fear or hesitation as they ran. Once, one of them came to an abrupt halt under the twilight-touched sky, watching it change slowly from the iron gray of day to the black of night. Gray to black. The one specter kept staring, looking as if it was going to say something poetic, but the other thought better of it, grabbed its companion's arm, and continued to run, dragging the other behind.

Dusk had finished its run and the night was cloaked with black before the two runners reached their destination. Stopping together this time, they squinted up at the huge, gnarly metal contraption they found before them. It towered over their heads, as high as a mountain, a mountain of twisting and talon-like metal, reaching up for the night sky. At the very top of he structure (they saw as they squinted) was perched a tiny spire that looking almost like a slanted, cartoon-like house, its lopsided windows lit with an eerie red glow.

Both runners got over their staring and approached the wall of the structure. Now that they had stopped running, one could get a better look at them and see that they were not really specters at all. Just people. Ordinary people dressed from head to foot in black. It was also possible to distinguish that both carried bundles under their arms. The one who had stopped to stare at the sky had a large and heavy looking bundle on a strap around their shoulder. The other was carrying something that looked much lighter.

They stopped in front of a blank, flat expanse of wall, long enough and high enough for both runners to be able to stand with their backs pressed against it. While the other waited, the one with the heavier bundle, now revealed to be a large, rectangular bag, crouched down and opened it, taking out a short, skinny metallic device of some sort. The runner with the device stood back with its arms outstretched and pressed a button. A bright blue laser shot out of it, casting the two figures in sharp relief. The one with the smaller bag looked around, apparently anxious that the light would give away their position. But no one came, and as the other watched, the one with the laser quickly yet carefully carved a curved rectangular shape over the wall, squinting through the bright light as it did so. As soon as a line was etched all the way around the shape, the runner walked up to it, and pushed it down with one finger. The section it had outline fell away with a heavy clang, revealing a large hole where the wall had been. Then, the runner put away the laser, nodded to its partner, scooped up its bag, and the both of them ran inside.

As soon as they set foot within the structure, an alarm bell went off, and a searing red light flooded the metal lab they now found themselves in. They shot one another the quickest of glances, before breaking into another run. Neither was fazed by the sudden onslaught of light and sound. Both had been expecting this.

Only seconds after the alarm had started to go off, a chorus of eerie pulsating lights was added to the dull red glow. The sound of explosions and the smell of charred metal were added to the confusion. The scene of the room was constantly changing. First it was pitch black, then searingly bright. First, it was silent, then the lasers would fill the silence with the screech and sob of death. First the air inside was still, then it seemed to shimmer with smoke and light. First everything had been calm, then there was chaos. The two runners seemed to have been sucked into a whirlwind of psychotic color and hellish sound.

Even though neither one of them could see, and they could both scream at the top of their lungs without hearing each other, neither of them stopped. If they kept running it was only highly likely that they would die. If they stopped, they would be killed for certain.

Though the metal hall was long and though everything in it seemed to be trying to kill them, by some miracle both runners managed to make it to the other side alive. The door that awaited them there was thicker and heavier than solid iron and firmly sealed shut. It was clear that no amount of force would be able to knock it down. But no matter. Both had prepared for this, too. As soon as they reached the door, both reached into their bags. The one with the lighter bag flipped open the cover and took out a laptop that had been sitting inside. The one with the heavier bag pulled out a small handgun and opened it, double-checking to make sure it was loaded. The gun was ancient, over fifty years old. Its accuracy was laughable, and it used as ammunition bullets, not lasers. But it had been the only one of its size that the two had been able to find.

As the room around them flashed and exploded, the runner with the laptop plugged it into an interface on the wall near the door, while the other stood guard over him. Occasionally, the one with the gun would fire a shot if it looked like one of the many guns lining the walls came just a little too close to their mark. But the gun was really only a comfort item. There was no real way to aim through all the smoke.

As soon as the laptop's screen began to glow, the runner set to work. He hastily punched in a few keys. As the bright lines and screens raced across the laptop's face, there was a whirring sound and the door slide open. The runner held up his hand: five fingers. The other nodded and ran through the door. The runner quickly unhooked the laptop, yanked the wire out of its side, and then ran through, tossing the wire to the ground as he went. The door slammed shut behind them, exactly five seconds after it had opened.

There was a sharp contrast between this room and the room they had just left. Where the other room was bursting with color, heat, and smoke, the room was pitch black and completely silent. As advanced as this technology was, it was obvious that their presence here had not, for the moment, been detected.

The minute they were through, the first runner pulled off its black mask with a jerking motion and gasped. Underneath was a young woman with long black hair and yellowish eyes. She sucked on the air in the room and rubbed the sweat from her forehead with her gloved hand. "Dear God," she wheezed, "I can't breathe in these damn things!"

The other reached up and pulled the bottom of his own mask up to the top of his head, revealing a young man who also had black hair and wore a pair of goggles over his eyes. Underneath the goggles was a visible red scar that ran behind the left lens and up over his brow. He frowned. "Westenra, what the hell do you think you're doing?" he hissed. "Leave your mask up."

"Look, I'm sorry, Dib, but I need to breathe," she hissed back. "God knows what kind of shit I inhaled back there."

"Hey!" he snapped. "What did we talk about? I told you to call me by my codename while we're in here."

Westenra rolled her eyes. "I don't see what the point is," she said. "He's going to know that it's us. Especially you. I think he knows you better than-"

"Westenra!"

Westenra sighed. "Very well, _Mothman,_" she said impatiently. "But I'm telling you, it won't make a difference."

"Oh come off it," he snorted. "You really think that after all these years, that moron's gonna-?"

"HALT."

Both Westenra and Mothman jumped and looked up. A large robot eye was staring at them from the ceiling, surrounded on all sides by ammunition. "INTRUDERS DETECTED," the voice sounded again, "IN ENTRANCE HALL D. SURRENDER AND BE ELIMINATED."

"Shit!" shouted Westenra. Both she and Mothman hastily got to their feet and ran to the right, pulling their masks on as they went. Yet another wall stood in their way, and the two went through the same routine, Mothman on the floor with another cable and the laptop, and Westenra standing up with the gun. Only this time, Mothman typed so fast that his fingers were practically a blur, and Westenra moved freely throughout the room, firing her gun randomly at the ceiling, trying to draw the laser fire away from Mothman. Eventually, the wall slid open, and Mothman shed the cable. "Westenra!" he screamed. She heard and ran towards him, tossing her handgun to the side. Both slid through the door just as it clanged shut. Once again, neither of them had been hit.

This time, there was no chance to rest. The guns in the corridor were ready and they began firing as soon as the two runners were through. Neither of them stopped or slowed their pace. As she ran, Westenra reached into her bag and pulled out a machine gun, much larger and even more precious than the handgun. She threw it to Mothman, who just barely caught it. She then pulled out one of her own, and both of them began firing, the staccato of their weapons adding to the cacophony all around them. These weapons still used bullets, so they were primitive, but there was one key difference between these and the handgun Westenra had used before: these were actually capable of doing some damage.

Debris rained down from the ceiling with every shot the two fired. The entire time they ran through the corridor, door after door slammed shut behind them. The very space of the hall itself was closing in behind them, trying to kill them, and still they kept running, running until they felt their lungs were jelly. And even then they couldn't stop, as sharp turn after sharp turn appeared in front of them, with lasers blazing at them from every angle…

As they ran, Mothman, kept an eye on the left wall, constantly repeating numbers in his head. Every time the two passed an indention in the wall, he would add one more. _5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7…_ Finally, he grabbed Westenra's shoulder and abruptly skidded to the side. "Nine!" he announced. "We're here!"

"What?" she yelled. "I can't hear you!"

"I said we're here!" yelled Mothman, hooking up his laptop.

"What?" she yelled, still firing.

"We're here!"

"What?"

"We're here!"

"WHAT?"

"HERE!"

Once again, the wall slid open. Mothman collected his laptop and yanked Westenra inside. They collapsed in a heap on the floor, Mothman cringing from where the laptop's corner had jabbed into his ribcage. Westenra blinked and looked around.

"Oh look at that," she observed. "We're here."

Mothman glared but offered no comment. Once again, the noise and smoke was behind them. The two runners sat up, pulled off their masks, and gazed around the room they now found themselves in.

It seemed to be a kind of storage room. All throughout the interior, every imaginable size and shape of machine was stacked haphazardly up against the walls, across the floor, hanging from the ceiling. Some of them were stuffed into huge, vaguely toy-like square crates, but these too were strewn around the room apparently randomly, and it was obvious that whoever had put all these machines in here didn't care one way or the other. Everywhere Mothman and Westenra looked there were claws, rivets, wires, cables, tubes, and other mechanical pieces clumsily sewn (so it seems) on the clunky forms of the obviously obsolete technology, all of it stained in varying shades of red and purple. Everything in the room was clearly old, although how exactly this was clear was a bit of a mystery because none of the machines were coated with any type or amount of rust and there wasn't a speck of dust anywhere. Perhaps it was merely the smell, that musky, decayed smell that accompanied any place where no living thing had tread in years.

Apparently, not even the security system wanted to come in here.

Both Westenra and Mothman lay on the floor for a moment, apparently lost in awe. But the moment soon passed. Mothman shook his head as if to clear it, frowned, then stood up, brushing ash from his pants as he did so. He headed toward the back of the room, brushing back piles of metal, looking for something.

Westenra cast a glance behind her. "Hey Di- er… Mothman?"

"Yeah?" he asked, not turning around.

"How long do you think we have in here?"

"I don't know," he answered. "Probably a few minutes." He paused, then added: "If they knew where we were they'd be in here already."

"Yeah," she said. "I guess."

"Well? Don't just lay there. Help me look for it."

"Sure."

Westenra got up, tucked her mask and gun into her bag, and moved to the opposite corner from where Mothman was searching. She too began moving piles of machinery out of the way, occasionally, opening a crate and glancing inside of it. "So," she began, peering behind a stack of crates "What exactly does this thing look like again?"

"Well, I never really saw a picture of it," Mothman answered, "But I saw some blueprints and a description from the files. Apparently it's some sort of huge donut-thing, with screens all around it."

"Huh," mused Westenra, smirking to herself. "Didn't think we'd be able to miss a thing like that."

"I know; that's what's bothering me!" Mothman complained, shoving his arm into a narrow gap between a metal claw and a broken glass tank. "I mean, if it's that big, shouldn't we be able to… Hello!"

Mothman paused and pushed his arm further into the gap. Just for a moment, he thought he'd seen… Yes! There it was. He brushed his fingers over the opposite wall. While the walls all around the room where smooth and grimy, this portion was rigid, full of little crevices and buttons. A panel? Mothman's face lit up.

"Hey, Westenra!" he shouted. "I think I found something!"

"What? Seriously?"

There was a series of tumbling and crushing sounds as Westenra shoved her way through to Mothman. Mothman waited patiently.

"Yeah?"

"This panel here, on the wall. See where my hand is touching?"

"Yeah. Okay, I got it."

Westenra walked over to the panel and brushed her own hand against it. There were twelve buttons on it, arranged in a three by four formation. All twelve buttons were completely identical, round and glowing with a dull pink light. Westenra thought for a moment, then rapidly pressed seven of them. The panel flipped over into the wall, and the wall slid to the side, revealing another room.

"Wow," said Mothman, peeking through the gap where his arm was. "How did you know the code?"

"The Network went over it with me before we left," she answered. "All the keypads use the same code." She carefully stepped over the piles of debris in her way and walked into the chamber.

"Hey, that's great," Mothman said appreciatively. "Now could you come here and help me out of this… Hello? Hey!"

But Westenra had already walked on. Mothman narrowed his eyes and sighed. "Ugh, never mind," he groaned. "I got it." He took a deep breath, flexed his fingers, and yanked his arm out in one motion. Some of the glass scraped past his arm as he pulled it out. It didn't break any skin, but he still felt the sting. He winced and stepped around the machines, grumbling to himself as he went.

He found Westenra a little distance away, standing perfectly still. "Hey!" he shouted as he approached her. "I know I went over this with you! When you hear me calling for help, you're supposed to… Are you even listening to me?"

She wasn't. Westenra wasn't even looking at him. She was too busy staring. Staring into the distance, mouth slack, eyes wide… Mothman frowned and then looked up himself, if only to see what it was she was gaping at.

He gasped.

The room the pair now found themselves in was huge and in much better condition than the storage room. And where before there had been piles and piles of machinery, all lumped and thrown together as if by random, this room held only one machine. But the sheer size and scale of it made up for that. It took up the entire back wall of the chamber, and it possessed all sorts of massive wires and tubes that ran behind it and all the way up the walls like the threads of a spider web. The machine consisted of a ramp, leading up to a circular archway of some sort. The archway was surrounded on all sides by what looked like a cluster of television screens, grouped in hive-like formations around the structure. Its form made it hideous, and yet the severity of its design and the scope of its technology made it beautiful in its own right. Hideous and beautiful. Just like everything else.

"Is that it?" Westenra asked, awe-struck.

"Yup, that's it," answered Mothman gravely. "The Space-Time Object Replacement Device."

There was a pause as they both contemplated it.

"Wow. It does look like a doughnut."

Mothman frowned at Westenra's lack of class, but offered no comment. "C'mon," he said. "We better get started." He shouldered his laptop and headed toward the Device's control panel, which was attached to the archway by some of its many tubes and wires.

"Yeah, alright," said Westenra. "I'll contact the Network, see if everything worked out on their end."

She went back into the storage room and fetched out her bag, which had grown a bit lighter since she had brought it in. She rifled through it and pulled out an old-fashioned walky-talky. She spent a few minutes fiddling with it, trying to get the right channel.

"Seems like a lot of trouble to go through," Westenra observed. "To hide this thing, I mean. Putting it in a hidden room behind the wall of another room? Isn't that a little excessive?"

"Yeah, well, he's all about excess isn't he?" said Mothman, taking out his laptop. He didn't look up at Westenra as he spoke.

"You don't think… You don't think he considered that we would try this, do you?" she asked. There was a soft tone of concern in her voice that Mothman picked up on.

"No way," answered Mothman, still not looking up. "There's no way he'd be able to predict this scenario exactly. He's paranoid, sure, but he doesn't have the foresight to think ahead this much. He's too…" His voice trailed off.

"Too what? Too what, Mothman?" asked Westenra, pointedly.

"I don't know. Too…"

"Too stupid, right? That's what you were going to say, right?"

Mothman sighed. "Westenra, please."

"Too stupid to build all this, right? Too stupid to plan ahead, right? Too stupid to conquer the whole damn world and everyone on it, that's what you were about to say, right?"

"Shut up." Mothman's hands froze on the keyboard. They were shaking. "Westenra, just shut up."

"I'm sorry." Westenra shook her head, almost as if to scold herself. "You're right, I'm sorry. It's just… I think he's changed. Since then, I mean. All these years, they've changed him. He used to be more… more…"

"More what?"

"More… I don't know. More…"

"More stupid, right?"

Westenra chuckled weakly. Just then, the walky-talky crackled. "Hello?" it sputtered. "Hello? This is Agent Tuna Ghost. Report in."

Westenra held the walky-talky against her ear. Her tone changed. It deepened, became more brisk, more professional. She had been training a long time for this moment. They both had. "Yo, Agent Tuna Ghost. This is Agent Westenra. I'm here with Agent Mothman. We're in. Mothman's hacking into the Device right now. How's it going on your end?"

"Everything go on this end," answered Agent Tuna Ghost. "We've reconnected the power lines to hall D7-9. Power surge should begin in approximately one minute. All agents are accounted for."

"Great," answered Westenra. "Nothing's gone wrong so far. This should be a snap."

"We'll see," said Tuna Ghost. "How are the coordinates coming?"

"Hang on; I'll check." Westenra covered the mouthpiece with her hand. "Dib, how's it coming?"

"It's Mothman!"

"It's going to be Mud if you don't answer!"

Mothman sighed and adjusted his goggles. "This is the most complex system I've ever seen," he said, resuming his typing. "It would take a genius to be able to break through it."

Westenra looked concerned. "Are you going to be able to get in?" she asked nervously.

Just then, there was a tiny series of beeps emitting from Mothman's laptop.

"Like I said," said Mothman, smirking. "It would take a genius."

Westenra frowned, but she was smiling again when Tuna Ghost received her answer. "They're coming along perfectly. Mothman's already in the system. Everything's going according to plan."

"Excellent," said Tuna Ghost. "We'll call again in about a minute for a status update. Long live Earth!"

"Long live Earth," murmured Westenra, nodding. The walky-talky crackled again then was silent.

Once the walky-talky was off, Westenra seemed a bit lost. She put it carefully back into the bag, making sure to rearrange everything inside the way it had been before. Then she fetched her gun out of her bag and walked over to the storage room. She stood in front of the door for a little while, contemplating it. She walked back into the room where the Device was, walking around in circles, studying the walls, the machinery, the dim red lighting coming from nowhere. She tapped her foot on the purple and red stained floor and listened to the sound it made. All the while, Mothman's eyes remained glued to the screen of his laptop. Only when Westenra leaned over his shoulder to watch the screen with him did he finally react. "Westenra," he sighed, "Could you not breathe over me like that when I'm working?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said meekly. She took a step back. There was a short pause before she spoke up again. "Um, how long do you think it will be?"

"Tuna Ghost said a minute, didn't she?" Dib said impatiently. "Until then, I can't even lock the coordinates in." He looked over his shoulder, inspecting her shrewdly. "Don't tell me you're bored. We're infiltrating a hostile alien's base and you're bored?"

"I know. I know," said Westenra, her eyes downcast. "But I hate waiting around like this. I feel like any second something else is going to pop out of the ceiling and try and murder us. And sitting around is just…" she sighed. "I hate it."

"I've spent most of my life hating stuff, Westenra," said Mothman. "Can't do anything but sit and bear it."

"And infiltrate a criminally insane alien's base?" Westenra asked slyly.

Mothman smiled. "And that," he said.

There was another pause. Without all the smoke, the laser blasts, and the lights pumping all around them, the silence in this forgotten room seemed immensely deep and foreboding. There was a sense of anticipation all around, of things waiting, watching. Westenra shuddered and eyed the ceiling nervously.

"You do realize," said Mothman, his eyes back on the screen. "Once the power comes on, they're going to know we're here." He smiled again, but the eyes under his goggles stayed narrow. "Things should get real interesting then."

Westenra leaned her back against the wall, the gun held loosely at her side. "Yeah, but the plan was that we'd be out of here by then."

"You sound disappointed."

"I'm not."

"You're lying."

Westenra didn't answer. She kept her eyes on the floor, the gun spinning through her fingers, round and round.

"If we do make it through-" she began quietly.

"When we make it through," Mothman corrected her.

"Whatever," she said. "What will happen, you know, to us?"

Mothman looked up at her. He seemed confused. "To us?"

"Yeah, I've been thinking about that a lot," she continued. She seemed unaware of Mothman's presence. "I mean, if we really do change everything, will we exist? In an alternate world? Or will we just… poof… vanish. Out of existence. Well?"

Mothman stared at her, then snorted. "I don't know," he said. "And honestly, I don't think it matters at this point."

"You don't?" murmured Westenra. Mothman felt a small alarm go off inside him. Westenra didn't seem to be talking to him anymore. She was looking off at somewhere distant, somewhere he couldn't reach.

"Why?" he asked uneasily. "Do you?"

Westenra looked further down still, and her eyelashes hid her eyes like curtains. "I don't know," she said softly. "I-"

Just then, the walky-talky crackled. Both agents jumped, Westenra apparently broken free of whatever trance she was in. "Th-that'll be Tuna Ghost," she said hastily. She stumbled over to the bag and yanked it out to her ear. "Hello?" she said, still a little shaken. "This is Agent Westenra."

"Hello, Westenra," the walky-talky sputtered. "This is Agent Tuna Ghost. Everything is all set up. The power should be coming your away any second now."

Just then, as if on cue, a distinct roaring sound resonated from everywhere: the walls, the Device, the hidden gears and mechanisms in the ceiling, everything. Westenra felt the rumbling of thousands of tiny vibrations in the floor against her feet. There was a great humming added to the roar, an ever-increasing frequency that seemed to beckon in a light that brightened in sync with the hum. Through the entire spider web of wires, tiny clicks and crackles could be heard, chattering with the energy searing through them. The power travelled through the floors, the walls, and finally, into the Device itself. The control panel that Mothman's computer was hooked into came to life with a series of blinking lights and tiny beeps. The monitors all around the gateway glowed white before settling into a display of black and white static. Finally, in the middle of the archway there was a sound of rushing, as if all the energy in the room was focusing itself on one single point. There was a crackle, some flashes of lightning, and suddenly, strung from rim to rim of the gateway was a purple and blue vortex, which swirled continuously, its strange lights all focused in its exact middle. As it spun, ghostly, indistinct shapes swirled within its intangible currents.

It was marvelous. It was as if some great creature had come to life after a long slumber within that room. Or, rather, that the room itself was the creature, stretching and yawning before the two agents.

Mothman turned his eyes back to his monitor. The screen grew brighter, and a series of alien symbols flashed across it. For the first time since they had arrived, he looked delighted.

"Ha ha!" he cheered. "It worked! We're in!" He then adjusted his goggles and resumed typing with doubled speed.

Westenra grinned then went back to the radio. "All systems are go," she said proudly. "Mothman's typing in the coordinates right now. We should be departing any second."

"Then there is nothing more to be done here," Tuna Ghost answered gravely. "Only one step remains. I wish good luck to both of you. Farewell." Then the radio crackled again and was silent.

Westenra removed the radio from her ear and held it out in front of herself, studying it quietly. "Farewell," she repeated softly.

She turned back to Mothman. "So that's it," she said. "They cut us loose. The only thing left to do is go through."

"Uh-huh," said Mothman, nodding. "Almost done with the coordinates." He jerked his head in the direction of the monitors. "Does that look right to you?" he asked.

Westenra turned around. A series of images was flickering on each of the Device's monitors. "Yeah," she said. "That's it."

"Alright then," said Mothman. "Let me just pick the objects to switch with. This might take awhile. Do you have the tickets?"

Westenra nodded. "Got 'em right here," she said, bending down to pat her bag. "Glad you reminded me. I might have forgot them." She set down the radio, reached inside the bag, and pulled out two small objects, one of which she tossed to Mothman, who caught it.

"Great," he said, pocketing it. "Put it away until we get there."

"I know," said Westenra. "You don't have to tell me everything, Mothman." She unzipped her jacket a placed the object in the inside pocket, just as Mothman had done.

For a moment there was no sound in the room except for the clicking of Mothman's keyboard and the quiet hum of the lab.

Suddenly the radio jumped to life. It began to crackle and hiss violently, practically rumbling with the sound emanating from it. Westenra froze and stared down at it, startled. Mothman turned from his laptop and faced her, looking perplexed.

"What's that?" he asked. "They're not supposed to call us again."

"I… I don't… I mean… Hang on, I'll check," Westenra stammered. Slowly she picked up the radio and raised it in front of her face. She couldn't hold it against her ear like before; the racket it was making was much too loud. "Uh, hello?" she asked nervously. "Agent Tuna Ghost? It's Westenra. We're still here. Ah, is there something you want to tell us? Hello?"

But if any words came out of the speaker, they were unintelligible. Mothman and Westenra listened, both with increasing anxiety, as the jagged noises continued. There were blasts of sound at random intervals, erratic increases and decreases in volume, and several other noises that neither Mothman nor Westenra could really describe.

Then finally there was a voice. "Ge…. Ah… Heh…"

"What?" Westenra yelled. "What? What is it? Hello?"

Nothing. More violent sound.

Still nothing.

Then suddenly:

"_HE'S HERE! HE KNOWS WHERE YOU ARE! GET OUT OF THERE! GET OUT OF THERE NOW!"_

Then the radio went dead and only static sounded.

There was one single second where Mothman and Westenra stared at each other, truly panic-stricken.

Then it hit.

"Why are you just sitting there?" cried Westenra. "Finish those coordinates! Hurry!"

"Okay, okay!" Mothman's fingers flew over the keyboard. His computer beeped. "It's done!" he shouted. "Let's go!" He reached down for his laptop, but Westenra yanked him away.

"Leave it!" she screamed. "There's no time!" She wrenched him to his feet and they bolted.

Or at least, they tried to. But before they had taken two steps, the red light in the room grew deeper and began to pulsate. A shrill alarm bell sounded, along with a familiar voice from the ceiling.

"INTRUDERS DETECTED IN SUB-ROOM D7-9."

"No!" yelled Mothman furiously. A thousand silver lights were beginning to flash from the ceiling, their sources slowly lowering themselves into the space below. Mothman whirled on Westenra. "Grab your gun!" he yelled.

Westenra gaped at him. "But," she stammered, her eyes shifting meaningfully toward the gate. "The door!"

"We're not gonna make it!" he snapped. "Grab your gun and start firing!"

Westenra's eyes flickered back and forth between the Device and Mothman before she nodded. She quickly turned on her heel and ran back to the corner where she had left her machine gun, her body seemingly going back to its old rhythm again. Action, it seemed, was where Westenra was most comfortable.

She rolled into a crouch, sweeping the gun onto her shoulder as she went, and paused there on the floor, the gun pointed straight upward. Mothman followed after her and also crouched down, trying to make himself as small as possible. She pulled the trigger, and the rounds inside sailed out, scraping past the alien turrets on the ceiling. But for all the noise and apparent destruction it caused, the gun was actually doing very little damage to the machinery, not even slowing it down as it lowered itself from the many hidden crevices in the ceiling, like larvae out of the hive.

"Go!" Westenra shouted as the bullets screeched and sang overhead. "Mothman, just go without me!"

"I can't!" he yelled back. "I've already programmed the machine to accept two objects! If I go without you, I won't be able to get back!"

The larvae in the ceiling had stopped hatching. They sensed the presence of the two and began to pulsate with raw energy. Some of the blasts had already started raining down.

"We'll have to run for it!" Mothman shouted. "If you keep firing that the whole way, we might have a chance!"

"Okay!" yelled Westenra, nodding.

"Ready?"

"GO!"

Both of them took off, Westenra in front, blazing away, Mothman directly behind her. Smoke was beginning to fill the room, and the temperature was growing higher every second. Jet after jet of light sailed by each of their heads as they bolted. It couldn't be such a long distance; it was only a few feet, and yet every step they ran the room seemed to be stretching in front of them and the seconds seemed to be ticking by slower and slower…

And then they were there. They were directly in front of the Device. They were running up its ramp to the gateway. Westenra could actually see the ghostly images swirling in its vortex…

And then she gasped as something cold grabbed her around her middle and yanked her clean into the air, her finger still sending the bullets flying erratically all over the ceiling. Mothman let out a snarl of frustration as he felt the same sensation, a sudden cruel yanking upward, with a force that dug into his abdomen and made him grunt in pain, his head rushing from the sudden speeding downward of air. Bursts of color were popping in both of their eyes as they wildly looked around, trying to grasp what had happened.

They had been caught; that's what had happened.

They both knew it, too, knew it from the second they felt their feet unplugging themselves from the ground. They were caught, they were had, it was over, all over.

Maybe.

They looked around. They were dangling above the ground, their feet swinging below them. Two large metal tentacles had burst out of the ceiling and snared them. Both agents could see them wrapped tightly around their stomachs. They had left their arms free, but what good was that? The tendrils were thick, thicker around the middle than Westenra's arm, and strong, impossible to cut through. They were helpless. All they could do was dangle uselessly and wait for the thousand laser blasts to come screaming their way.

But it didn't happen. The turrets were all pointing at them, they could see down the barrels to the dark tunnels inside, but nothing fired a single shot. For all the chaos that had reigned earlier, there was only silence now.

"Hey, what gives?" asked Westenra irritably, cringing from the growing pain in her stomach. "Aren't you going to kill us?"

"QUIET HUMAN," answered the voice. "THE MASTER APPROACHES."

Westenra's expression immediately changed. "Here?" she whispered, startled. "He's actually coming here?"

Mothman, however, didn't seem so surprised. "Of course he is," he said darkly. "He's going to want to see who got past his _impenetrable defenses_ or whatever."

"What are we going to do?" she asked. "He knows who we are! He's going to recognize us!"

Mothman rolled his eyes. "Westenra, I already told you. There's no way he's going to remember us! It's been way too long."

"Dib, you keep saying that, but I don't think-"

"QUIET."

Mothman and Westenra both cringed; the voice had been much more insistent this time. They remained silent, waiting, waiting for him to walk through the door.

They didn't have to wait long. Past the entrance to the lab, behind all the broken tech piled behind, there was the sound of the metal wall sliding out of place. A shaft of pink light briefly flashed into the room and disappeared. Mothman and Westenra waited, their breath held in anticipation, waiting to see the classmate they hadn't glimpsed in years…

But he didn't appear. Mothman and Westenra eyed each other. He wasn't the type to miss a big entrance.

"Uh, I don't get it."

"Did he come in?"

"I don't know. It looked like it, but…"

"Wait, you hear that?"

Mothman listened. At first, there was nothing. But then he heard it. Rather, he more felt it than heard it; it was so soft. It weaved in and out of his hearing like a fly's buzz. It was a kind of rustling, a vaguely robotic skittering sound. Coupled with the silence, it had a vaguely chilling feel.

"I… I think he's on the ceiling," said Westenra.

They both quickly looked up, but among all of the metal hanging from the ceiling, they could spot nothing. Yet still that soft clicking sound persisted.

"I don't see him."

"I can still hear it. Man, that sound's really getting on my nerves."

"Hey! I think it stopped."

And so it had. Mothman and Westenra looked at each other.

Then they heard another sound, unidentifiable. It reminded Westenra vaguely of water sliding down the side of a wall.

Then, as if by instinct, they both slowly craned their necks behind them.

And came face to face with a giant green bug.

"Boo," it said, grinning.

Westenra screamed and swung the butt of her machine gun at it. It swiftly swung out of the way, cackling, and propelled itself downward. Four long mechanical spider-legs stretched themselves out behind it, sprouting from a metal shape on its back. These, the two knew, are what the monster had been using to hang from the ceiling.

The creature landed on the ground and rolled into a halt, its mechanical limbs sending up sparks as they braced it against the floor. "Too slow human," the creature sneered. "It will take more than that fancy stick to deal with ME."

"ZIM!" hissed Mothman.

"But of course!" ZIM answered, retracting his spider-limbs. "Who else would it be?"

From the back of the room came a high-pitched squeak.

"Oh, besides you," snapped ZIM.

Mothman and Westenra looked up in the direction of the sound. A small, round purple moose-looking creature was hovering above the floor, slowly floating nearer to ZIM. It was proportioned like a squeak toy, and there was a little smile on its face. Its appearance contrasted rather sharply with everything else in the room.

"I presume you've met Minimoose?" ZIM asked. "No? Well, this is Minimoose." He gestured toward the purple creature.

Mothman and Westenra glared at ZIM, not amused.

"Hmph," snorted ZIM. "How disrespectful. And after Minimoose and I were able to get such joy out of the both of you." A mocking smile broke over his face. "I must say, we both found a lot of amusement in the looks on you two's faces!"

ZIM laughed uproariously and pointed at the two agents, who were getting more and more annoyed by the second. "Seriously!" he shouted. "Seriously, it was great! She was all like 'EEEAAAAAUGH!'" And he demonstrated and resumed laughing again. He actually seemed to be doubling over in pain, he was laughing so hard. Minimoose squeaked again, apparently laughing too, but it was hard to tell.

Mothman glared down at the creature in front of him, all of the old feelings of hate rising up inside him. This thing, ZIM, looked exactly the way Mothman remembered. The green skin, bright magenta eyes, and smug grin that he had obsessed over for a brief period of his life. Even his height was the same; he was tiny, he childlike stature unchanged since their days in school. It was as if ZIM had been frozen, preserved by time, while the world aged around him. The only change that had occurred over the years was that now ZIM was wearing an ornate (and incredibly tacky, Mothman thought) purple cloak over his old uniform. Of course. A wardrobe change. Why was he not surprised.

"Is that the whole reason you kept us alive?" Mothman yelled angrily. "Just to gloat?"

"Of course!" ZIM shouted again, grinning up at the two. "It's been years since anyone has tried to get inside my base! I wouldn't want to miss an opportunity like this!"

"You sick monster!"

"Oh what a wait it's been!" ZIM went on, ignoring Mothman. He turned around, as if addressing the storage room. "Five years. Five years it's been since a human set foot inside this place. Oh sure, they have reason enough, but even so, how strong can an invader be without enemies?" ZIM turned back around and flashed a delighted smile at Mothman. "Honestly, I was starting to worry that you would never show up, Dib!"

Mothman's eyes widened. "You… you remember me?"

"Remember you!" ZIM seemed insulted by the question. "You were my nemesis! What, the entire earth is mine for the taking and you don't do a thing about it! You disappoint me, Dib! I expected more from you after all these years, much more!"

Mothman stared at ZIM, shocked. Westenra shot a look at him from the side.

"Imagine my delight," ZIM went on, "When I found out that you and that little girl had worked up the nerve to come in here again!"

"Hey!" piped up Westenra, peeved. "What, you can't be bothered to remember my name, too?"

ZIM waved his hand absently in her direction. "Yes, yes just a second. And I must say I'm impressed," he resumed while Westenra sulked. "You human-dirt-things went through a lot of trouble to get in here. Reactivating the power, dodging your way through security, distracting Bugger, oh yes, very impressive. Very thorough. BUT FUTILE." And here he began laughing again.

Westenra stared, horrified. "Bugger?" she repeated fearfully. "You mean you found them? All of them?"

"I should think so," he said smugly. "There were quite a few. A lot more than I would like, anyway. It would have been better if it had just been you two, don't you think?" His attention was focused on her now, and his eyes were narrowed with gleeful anticipation. "Still, they were brave. Brave and stupid. How typical. They tried to fight back, of course. A fatal mistake. Tell me, human," ZIM paused, leering into Westenra's face. "Would you like to know how many of your friends died today? Oh, it was quite a sight. I honestly thought they wouldn't ever shut up! They just kept screaming and screaming! By the time Bugger got in there, why, he was practically starving-"

"SHUT UP!" Westenra screamed. Mothman looked over at her, alarmed. There was a wild, hunted look in her eyes that he had never seen before. Her breath was coming out in heaving gasps. Before anyone could say another word, Westenra ripped her machine gun from her side and crushed the trigger. A swarm of bullets clattered out, all speeding straight towards ZIM.

But ZIM had been anticipating this. His spider-limbs stretched out of their metal shell, sharpening themselves into two short metal rods. A blue force field erupted from both ends and encircled him, all in the span of less than a second. The bullets, instead of going through him, rebounded off the surface of the field and rocketed off towards the walls. Both Mothman and Westenra cringed as the bullets sailed past them.

"Minimoose!" called ZIM, his eyes still locked on his two captives. "Relieve the Earth female of her weapon."

Minimoose squeaked and opened his tiny mouth. A green tractor beam shot out and radiated slowly towards Westenra. Westenra grasped her gun and tried to clutch it close to herself, out of the beam's way, but it was no use; she felt the gun being yanked out of her hands by an irresistible force. The gun floated slowly downwards, back to Minimoose who shut off the beam and hovered underneath it just in time to catch it between his antlers.

"No!" shouted Westenra, struggling violently.

"Yup," said ZIM back. "What can I say? Sometimes that's just how it goes. You risk everything for one final chance… and you fail miserably and your friends die. Such is life." He raised his voice to the ceiling. "Computer!" he shouted, looking very pleased with himself. "Search the entire floor and collect any other Earth toys you can find!"

"YES, MASTER." Answered the voice. There was a sound of rushing, a sound of data running through circuits as the order was being carried out. While Mothman and Westenra watched, two silver claw arms unhooked themselves from the ceiling and extended downward. One grabbed hold of Mothman's laptop. The other hooked onto the strap of Westenra's bag. Once both claws had grabbed hold of their desired objects, they raised themselves back up to the ceiling and vanished into it. Outside, there was a vague, muffled noise of something moving, no doubt the computer collecting the cables that Mothman had dropped.

Westenra stopped struggling and glared at ZIM, humiliated. There were tears coming into the corners of her eyes. "Damn you," she choked. "Damn you."

Mothman, however, wasn't paying attention to ZIM anymore. He was gazing rather mournfully at the Device's control panel, lamenting the loss of his laptop. But as he turned to look back at ZIM, his eyes happened to fall upon Minimoose. He stopped and stared in surprise. Minimoose was still holding the gun, despite ZIM's orders for the computer to collect everything. Mothman raised an eyebrow. He looked down towards his legs and began swinging his right foot back and forth experimentally.

"Of course," ZIM went on, not noticing Mothman. "While that's being taken care of, there's still the question of what to do with you."

Tears flowed down Westenra's cheeks. "Why don't you just kill us, too?" she snapped. "You've already killed everyone else."

"Oh, I don't think so," answered ZIM, shooing the idea away. "You see, if I did that, then you both would be dead, and I'd be bored again! After all that waiting you put me through, it seems a little anticlimactic, don't you think? Oh no, I'll have to punish you both properly, but how? I supposed I could…"

He kept talking, apparently forgetting their presence. Westenra continued to glare at him, teeth gritted, her tears still shining on her cheeks. Mothman, meanwhile, continued to swing his foot back and forth, back and forth, each time with a different intensity. He frowned and shook his head; something wasn't working quite the way he wanted. Then he turned over to Westenra, looked at the position she was in, shifted his eyes back to Minimoose, then decided it could work after all. He reached over and pushed his foot against Westenra's shin.

"Ah!" she hissed in surprise. She looked over at Mothman. "Wha-?"

Mothman shushed her and anxiously looked back at ZIM. He was facing away from them, saying something about exploding weasels. Mothman turned back to Westenra and mouthed something to her. She rose an eyebrow. His eyes flicked to Minimoose and back, and he swung his leg back and forth to demonstrate. Westenra stared for a moment longer, then her eyes widened and she gasped. She nodded comprehendingly.

"Hey!" ZIM suddenly snapped, his attention refocused on the two. "What are you two whispering about?"

Westenra jumped a little and looked taken aback by the question, but Mothman grinned smugly. "Sorry, ZIM," he said. "We were just wondering… We're not the only ones who are missing somebody, are we? Where's your little robot, ZIM? Did he finally break down?"

For the first time since he had entered the room, a spark of irritation flashed in ZIM's eyes. "I'll be the one asking the questions, Dib-pig," he snapped. "It's not really any of YOUR business what happens to MY minions."

Westenra took the moment to carefully wriggle her foot out of her shoe while Mothman sneered at ZIM. " 'Your minions?' " he jeered. "Oh, please. The way you say that, you make it sound like you own them. Like you're their master or something."

ZIM scowled. "Fool!" he snapped. "I am their Master!"

"Don't make me laugh." Mothman smirked, and his eyes were mocking underneath his goggles. "You've only ever been as good as those things you surround yourself with. Back in the day when all you had was that one crappy house and that idiotic robot, you were nothing more than a blabbering idiot yourself. But now that you've got all these new gadgets, a moose, a demonic insect, all of a sudden you're the badass king of the world. You need those things all around you, ZIM. You're nothing without them. In reality, you belong to them more than they belong to you."

For a moment ZIM glared at Mothman, a look of pure hatred on his face. Then his spider legs shot out of his back and lifted him above the ground. He moved across the floor, and as he moved, his spider legs continued to extend, pushing him upwards so that by the time he finally stopped, his face was inches from Mothman's. Westenra opened her mouth as if to call out, to who, she didn't know, but she thought better of it and closed her mouth again.

As Westenra watched anxiously, ZIM lifted one spider leg off the floor, using the other three to maintain his balance. He reached up with his free leg and placed the sharp tip of the foot on Mothman's cheek. He traced the tip down slowly to Mothman's chin, using his spider leg as a scalpel. A line of blood appeared along the path ZIM traced and began to trickle down Mothman's face. Mothman's smirk didn't fade, but Westenra saw him cringe slightly with the pain.

"You have no idea how much you annoy me," ZIM hissed.

Mothman stared right back into ZIM's magenta eyes. "Still bored? Spaceboy?" he asked.

ZIM growled. "I've spent far too long fantasizing your demise, Dib." He spat Mothman's name. "Now that I've been presented with this opportunity, I am not going to waste it. I'm going to finish you off slowly and painfully." ZIM paused, then smiled mockingly. "Maybe I'll leave the female alive for me to play with," he taunted.

"Yeah, I think I'll pass on that," said Westenra, and she swung her right leg as hard as she could, sending her shoe flying off at a ballistic speed.

ZIM saw the projectile and instinctively flinched back, but the shoe sailed right by him, not even coming close to hitting him. Actually, Westenra wasn't aiming for ZIM at all. Instead, the shoe zoomed straight towards the lab floor.

And conked Minimoose square in the face.

Minimoose uttered a squeak, either of surprise or pain, and fell backwards, hitting the ground hard. And as Minimoose fell, the gun fell too. It slid off of his head and slammed into the metal floor. And as soon as it hit the floor, it went off.

Mothman smirked. Two shots. It had only fired two shots. But it was enough.

The bullets were not enough to do any serious damage to the ceiling's machinery. But as soon as the shots clanged against the ceiling, the room went berserk. Immediately, the room was submerged in the same pulsing red light, and the alarm bell seared the room. "ENEMY FIRE DETECTED IN ROOM D7-9," the computer chimed. "ABORT OPERATION IMMEDIATELY. PREPARING TO RETURN FIRE." The thousand weapons in the ceiling began to arm themselves, pulling themselves from the ceiling and pointing in every direction. ZIM, at first completely confounded, now seemed to comprehend what was happening. "No!" he shouted. "No! Ignore it! I command you!"

But either the computer could not hear ZIM or chose to ignore him. A thousand white-hot pulses of light shattered the air, filling it with the familiar debris and smoke. Except this time, ZIM was in the middle of it. And, for the first time since he had entered the room, he didn't know what to do. He stared, completely dumbfounded, as the lab literally exploded all around him.

Just then, both Mothman and Westenra felt a ripple in the cables around them. They were beginning the thrash, back and forth, perhaps in reaction to the madness happening around them. Mothman laughed. "You lose, ZIM!" he sneered. "Again!" And then, with a final crack, both cables slammed them down onto the ground. Mothman took the moment to sweep his leg under himself as he fell, knocking against ZIM's spider legs as he did so. The metal buckled under ZIM and toppled him, screaming, to the ground.

ZIM slammed sideways into the hot, smoky floor and tried to scramble to his feet, cringing. "Stop them!" he screamed. "STOP THEM!"

Too late. Mothman and Westenra landed, Westenra a little more shaken, nodded to each other, and jumped through the vortex. The swirling light inside of the Device flashed white for an instant, and bolts of lightning crackled across its arch. Then, suddenly, it calmed, the lightning stopped, and it returned to its normal shades of blue and purple, the smoky images in its surface no longer visible, the monitors flashing with static.

They were through. They were gone.

Immediately, the room calmed down. The lasers stopped firing; the turrets put themselves away. The smoke in the lab cleared, wafting away into various vents aligned throughout the room. The alarm bell became silent, and the lab returned to its normal lighting. All the while ZIM stared at the Device from his position on the floor, trying to process what just happened.

Just then, the vortex lit up again. As if by one, final insult, two pebbles careened out of it at mach speed and flicked against ZIM's face.

It was only then that he realized they were gone. "No," he whispered. Then, louder. "NO!"

He got up and ran over to the Device, racing up its ramp, stopping just in front of the swirling vortex. He stared into it, mortified, perhaps hoping that if he stared long enough then this wouldn't be real. That somehow it would reverse itself.

The computer chose this moment to give a status report. "INTRUDERS NO LONGER PRESENT," it said. "BASE SECURE."

"I KNOW THAT!" ZIM snapped. "The point was to try to STOP them from leaving, you fool!"

"FORGIVE ME, MASTER," the computer chimed automatically.

"How could this happen!" ZIM demanded to no one in particular. "How! Everything was going so perfectly!"

He whipped his head around wildly, looking for the cause. His eyes stopped on Minimoose, who was still lying on the floor, Westenra's machine gun lying to one side. He walked over to where he was and picked up Westenra's shoe, which was lying just to the side of Minimoose's head. He held it up to his face and examined it closely.

"A shoe?" he asked blankly. Then his expression hardened. "A shoe!" he shouted. "A SHOE! INVADER ZIM, defeated by a SHOE! UNNACCEPTABLE!"

He whirled on Minimoose. "Minimoose, this is your fault!" he screeched.

Minimoose squeaked.

"Don't you dare give me any excuses!" ZIM snapped. "Because of your shoe-weakness, everything I've worked for could be in jeopardy!"

Minimoose squeaked again. ZIM snarled furiously and whirled on the computer. "Computer, get them back! Bring them back, now!"

"COMMAND IMPOSSIBLE," said the computer. "COORDINATES HAVE BEEN RESET."

"Reset!" ZIM repeated angrily. "Then there's no way to get to them! Unless…"

ZIM placed his gloved hand on his mouth, thinking. Then, it occurred to him. "Computer!" he shouted. "Bring me the Earth boy's primitive computer!"

The room whirred, all the circuits processing his command. Then a metal arm extended from the ceiling, clutching Mothman's laptop. It lowered it down to ZIM, who grabbed it. He flipped open the lid and glanced at the screen. There, in large white letters, were the coordinates Mothman had typed in earlier.

ZIM smiled, the confidence he had lost earlier quickly returning to him. "Oh, you did well to plan ahead, Dib. But you didn't plan hard enough! Computer!" He snapped his gaze back up to the ceiling. "Hook this computer into the Space-Time Object Replacement Device's circuits and enter in the coordinates!"

"WHAT WILL YOU SEND IN TO RETRIEVE THEM?"

ZIM scowled. In his head, Mothman's voice still echoed, sharp and mocking. _"Don't make me laugh." "You've only ever been as good as those things…" "You belong to them…" "Just a blabbering idiot…" "You're nothing without them."_

"_You lose, ZIM."_

"Myself, of course!" shouted ZIM, slamming his hand against his chest. "Since this equipment has proven to be so unreliable, _I_ will go back and personally bring the humans here. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, I say!"

Minimoose squeaked.

"Since always, Minimoose. What are you talking about?" Replied ZIM, straightening his robe.

He was about to step in right then and there, but at the last second he hesitated.

"Wait," he said out loud to himself. "I can't just jump in there. I don't have any way to return! What if I end up stuck back there, and the entire planet's business continues without me?"

He stood in front of the gateway, his hand on his chin. "Now, think," he said to himself. "They wouldn't have risked going in if they didn't have a way to get back."

The computer beeped. "MASTER," it said.

ZIM looked up. "What is it?"

"THIS OBJECT MAY BE OF INTEREST TO YOU."

At these words, a mechanical arm unhooked itself from the ceiling and reached up into one of the many crevices above. The claw at the end of the arm caught hold of something and swung it down so that it dangled directly in front of ZIM. ZIM stared at the object curiously for a second before taking it. It was Westenra's bag.

He tore open the zipper and peered inside, probing his arm around in its contents. There honestly wasn't much left inside of it; Westenra's mask was tucked inside as well as an extra pair of human gloves, a bottle of water, some empty food wrappers, all illegally obtained of course. There was nothing terribly interesting, and ZIM was about to irritably throw the bag down when something caught his eye.

Buried deep under the trash and cloth was a brilliant purple light, which pulsed with a slow, calm rhythm. ZIM reached inside the bag again and brushed away all of the clutter. Now that it was partially revealed, ZIM could see that the light was emanating from some sort of metal object. Gingerly, ZIM grasped the thing with two fingers and set the bag down.

The thing in question might have reminded a human of a piece of jewelry, but ZIM only stared at it, baffled. It was a long, soft strap, with a crude buckle on each end. Clearly it was meant to be fastened around something, but it was too small to be a belt. The light was coming from a circular pendant like shape in the center, perfectly round and flashing with the same bright purple light. ZIM could make nothing of it, but one thing was perfectly clear to him. This thing was out of place. There was something, distinctly inhuman about it. Humans could not have made this.

Not without help.

ZIM reached into the metal shell on his back. A hole opened in the top of it, from which ZIM took out a device like a jagged metal frame. He held it in front of the thing, watching the device closely. A rotating diagram and strings of alien writings appeared across it. ZIM analyzed these closely for a moment then started in surprise. He placed the frame back inside of his shell and then gently ran his thumb over the strap's pendant. He applied just a tiny bit of pressure onto it and felt the surface give way under the weight. A button. The pendant was actually a button. ZIM smiled.

"So this is how they did it, eh?" he asked quietly. He looked up, grinning into the vortex. "Very well, Dib-pig. I'll play with you one last time."

A claw extended out of his shell, grabbed hold of the strap, and pulled it in, closing the hole it made behind it. He stood in front of the gateway, one hand on its edge. "Computer!" he ordered. "Enter in the coordinates, now!"

"YES, MASTER."

ZIM turned to face Minimoose and grinned, and the shape of him was cast black against the ghostly lights of the vortex. "Farewell, Minimoose," he said. "I won't be long."

Then he stepped through the gateway, and, with a flash of white light, he was gone.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Hello all! Welcome to the doom that is _Really Screwed up Future._ I've this idea in my head for a while, but only recently did I really get serious about writing. Ironically, right after I started this thing again, I found out about Operation Head Pigeons and their quest to get the show back on air. Fate? Maybe. We'll see, won't we? We'll see.

I feel like I'm supposed to talk about the story at this point, but really, I don't have much to say. Maybe I'll come up with more ramblings in future chapters.

I like to imagine ZIM making his entrance hanging upside down, like Spiderman.

Also, I read somewhere a few years ago (I think it might have been ) that Irken names are supposed to be spelled in all caps. I assumed that was true, since that's the way they're spelled on the back of the DVD covers, so that's how I'll spell it here. You know, just in case you were wondering.

And why is Minimoose's name not in all caps? Because... I didn't feel like it. Also, I didn't want the page to constantly be screaming MINIMOOSE MINIMOOSE MINIMOOSE at you while you're reading it. Though some people might find that kind of funny...

I think that's all I want to say for now. I think I'm gonna have a lot of fun with this one. Enjoy!


	2. The Creepy Kid

**The Creepy Kid**

The bell rang. 9:00. Time for school.

By the time the jangling wail of the school bell was heard, most of the students of Ms. Bitters's class were already in their seats, for they feared more than anything what kind of horrible fate would befall them if they angered their teacher.

But there was one student, who, it seemed, was incessantly late.

That boy was now sprinting down the hall, panting with the effort. He knew that the bell had already rung, but he kept going at the same breakneck pace, knowing that he would never make it to class on time, but maybe, just maybe, if he ran fast enough…

He burst through the door, trench coat flying behind him. For a second, he thought he'd made it, but then his gaze fell on the green-skinned boy sitting in the very first row, directly in front of the door. A certain boy who was doing his best not to look at him.

Dib scowled in frustration. ZIM was already here.

He walked up to ZIM and opened his mouth, about to say something, when a long shadow suddenly enveloped him.

"Dib," a voice hissed menacingly. "You're late again."

Dib started and whirled around. The serpentine form of Ms. Bitters herself was looming over him, eyes glowing, a strange rattling sound accompanying her. "Look, I know I'm late," Dib protested. "But it wasn't my fault! ZIM was-!"

"I don't care what ZIM was doing," Ms. Bitters growled. "It shows up to school on time, or it gets the hose again! Now sit!"

"But I'm telling you," Dib went on. "It was ZIM this time, I swear! He's up to something; I know he is! I thought I'd follow him to school, but he jumped me with explosive monkeys! I barely escaped with my life!"

He whirled on ZIM and slammed both his hands onto his desk. "Isn't that right, ZIM!" he shouted angrily. "Admit it! You can't hide the truth forever!"

ZIM kept his eyes on the ceiling, a small smile playing around his face. "Ms. Bitters," he said innocently, "The earth-stink is starting to scare me. Please make him stop."

"Dib!" Ms. Bitters snarled. "Sit down, now!"

"But I-!"

"SIT!"

Dib shuddered then sighed. "Yes, ma'am," he said, defeated. He slunk back to his seat, a disembodied monkey arm clinging to the back of his jacket.

Ms. Bitters slithered over to her desk and surveyed the room. All the students were accounted for, sitting at their desks, waiting for the lesson to start. Ms. Bitters snarled. Children. She hated every single one of them. Some of them more than others. Her gaze rested on Dib once more before she addressed the class.

"Class," she began. "Once again you are all back in this room, cursing me with your presence. And once again, despite multiple threats to the school board, we have a new student to add to the wretched collective of the student body."

The class, in general, seemed unresponsive to this news. So many new kids had come and gone recently that the fact that a new face would be appearing was no longer a commodity. Mostly, everyone was hoping that this new kid would bring wieners, like the last girl had. Only Dib, sitting two columns away from ZIM, seemed to pay any attention. His eyes narrowed, and he glared over at the door suspiciously.

Ms. Bitters turned her head to the side. "You!" she shouted towards the door. "Get in here!"

There was a pause before a young girl stepped into the classroom.

The class gazed on passively. The girl seemed nice enough but not terribly interesting. She wore a white t-shirt and faded, ripped jeans. Her long black hair went down almost to her waist and her eyes were a dull yellowish color. "Uh, hey guys," she said, waving sheepishly. "My name's Luz. I just moved here. I'm, uh, really excited about getting to go to school with all of you."

Nobody reacted to these words. A few people coughed. Somewhere in the room, a cricket chirped. Dib took the opportunity of silence to pull the monkey arm off the hem of his jacket.

"Um." Luz seemed unsure of what to do now. She turned to Ms. Bitters. "Should I sit down, or-?"

"Hey!" sounded a voice from the group. Luz looked up, surprised. The voice came from a boy sitting somewhere behind Dib.

"Yes?" Luz asked hesitantly

"You got any wieners?"

Luz blinked. "Um, what?"

"Wieners! You got any?"

"No," she answered, frowning. "I… I don't think it's Valentine's Day yet."

"Well, do you at least have some beef jerky?"

"Yeah!" someone else agreed. "Jerky!"

The class hummed with agreement. A few people were cheering. Luz looked completely lost. She looked over at Ms. Bitters uncertainly. "Ms. Bitters, w-what-?"

"Quiet, all of you!" Ms. Bitters snapped.

The class was instantly silent. Ms. Bitters glared at them for a moment before turning back to Luz. "That's quite enough," she said. "Now sit."

Luz looked around. "Where?" she asked.

Ms. Bitters swept her gaze over the classroom. The children all shuddered slightly; a few tightly gripped the edges of their seats. Her eyes finally came to rest on a rather sticky-looking empty table at the very back of the room.

"There," she said, pointing. "You can have Willy's old desk. He doesn't come to class anymore."

"Why not?" asked Luz.

"SIT! NOW!" Ms. Bitters snarled.

Luz jumped. "Yes, Ms. Bitters!" she cried. She hurried to the back of the classroom and sat down without another word. Dib turned around in his chair as she ran by, and he watched her with the same suspicious glare even after she had sat down. He saw her grimace when she touched the seat and look towards the front of the room anxiously.

Ms. Bitters slithered up to the blackboard behind her desk and picked up a piece of chalk. "Alright, class," she hissed. "Now for today's lesson. Can anyone tell me why the fall of the human race is inevitable?"

At these words there was an audible crash from the front of the room; ZIM had jumped out of his seat.

"Oh! Oh!" he shouted excitedly, crouching on top of his desk, waving his arm maniacally. "I know! Pick me!"

Ms. Bitters shot a nasty glare in ZIM's direction, but he continued to furiously wave his arm as if trying to launch a spider off the end of his wrist. She shifted her gaze back to the rest of the class, choosing to ignore him. "Well?" she asked. "Anyone?"

"Me! I know! Pick me!"

"Anyone at all?"

"ME! I tell you, look here! Pick me! Pick ZIM!"

"Someone has to know."

"I AM ZIM!"

"You! Poonchy!"

A redheaded boy sitting right next to ZIM looked up blankly from the doodle on his desk that he was studying. ZIM groaned loudly and slumped back in his seat.

"Wha-?" asked Poonchy, clearly not comprehending what he was being asked.

"I said, do you know why the human race, in the long run, is doomed?"

"Um," said Poonchy, searching in the back of his brain. "Because we won't get any beef jerky?"

ZIM looked as though he might strangle him. "Jerky!" he yelled angrily, seemingly offended. "Really!"

Ms. Bitters wasn't amused either. "No," she said curtly. "Let me try to illustrate this a different way." She turned her back to the class and carefully wrote something on the board. The class leaned forward in their chairs and strained their necks, struggling to see what she was doing. After a few seconds of this, Ms. Bitters turned away from the board and tapped what she had inscribed there. It was a perfectly to scale drawing of a guillotine.

"Spoo!" she called, gesturing to her drawing. A boy with blue eyes and a green shirt looked up, a little apprehensively. "How long do you think you would live without your head?"

Spoo frowned. "Um, not very long, I guess," he said.

"Anyone else? Zita?"

"I don't know," said a girl sitting behind ZIM. "A few seconds maybe?"

"Very good," said Ms. Bitters. "All correct answers. As far as humankind has evolved, as advanced as they apparently are, they are still severely limited. Even an injury as minor as losing your head could mean instant death.

"Now for another example. Dib!" she called. "What would happen in the case of a nuclear fallout?"

But Dib wasn't listening. He was turned around in his seat, staring fixedly at the back of the room. Ms. Bitters growled. "Dib!" she snarled.

Dib turned around. "Huh?" he asked. "Uh, yeah?"

"Pay attention, Dib! I asked you a question! What would happen to the human race in the face of a nuclear disaster?"

"It would eventually die off," Dib answered. "Because of the effects of the radiation."

"Correct," she said. "You get an F."

"But-!" Dib protested. "I got it right!"

"I don't care." She slinked over to the board and began drawing again, while Dib scowled. She turned around. This time, it was the symbol for nuclear radiation.

"Here you have it," she said. "Two of humanity's weaknesses. If confronted with either of these things, a human would die. Painfully."

The class stared on, letting her words sink in. In the front of the room, ZIM was taking notes rather enthusiastically.

"As you can all hopefully see, humankind is tragically under-evolved. Even after millions of years of apparent 'perfection' humans are still weak, still inferior."

"Pffffft," ZIM scoffed. "I knew that."

"Humans will die when faced with these scenarios," Ms. Bitters went on, ignoring ZIM. "But do you know what creature would survive them?"

The class did not know. Everyone was looking at each other, as if the answer might be found in the other's eyeballs.

"Would like to know?"

The class looked up. They would very much like to know.

"Cockroaches!"

The class jumped, surprised. Ms. Bitters went on, her tone a little louder, a little more hostile. "That's right. Cockroaches," she said. "A cockroach is immune to the effects of nuclear fallout. Once the missiles have hit and humanity is extinct, cockroaches will still be alive, scurrying through the ruins of civilization. And as for the head, do you know how long a cockroach can survive without one?"

No one said anything. They were waiting for the answer.

"A week," said Ms. Bitters. "An entire week without a head. Only then will the cockroach die. Not from the absence of a head but from thirst. In addition, cockroaches are incredibly agile and have highly tuned reflexes. It can easily dodge any threat, especially those dished out by a slow, clumsy human. They have roamed this planet for five hundred million years and have barely changed in all that time."

Ms. Bitters went back to the board and drew again, more enthusiastically than before. She turned away. The class looked at the third drawing. In between the guillotine and the hazard symbol, there in white chalk on green was the form of a cockroach, legs, wings, antennae, and all. The class grimaced. A few people gagged. The form on the board was hideous, disgusting.

"Cockroaches have not evolved in all this time," said Ms. Bitters. "Because they have already reached perfection."

ZIM widened an eye, looking mildly interested. He scribbled something down at the bottom of his notes, as if as an afterthought.

"So in conclusion, students," said Ms. Bitters, eyeing the class contemptuously. "The human race will fail. And it comes as no great surprise. How can the human race possibly hope to survive if it's biologically inferior to a disease-ridden vermin? All of humanity will ultimately be succeeded by a small, disgusting, weak-"

"EEEAAAAAUGH!"

Ms. Bitters snapped up and glared furiously at the back of the room. The rest of the class also turned around and stared. It was Luz. She was leaning as far back in her chair as possible, and her arm was held in front of her chest like a blanket.

"Luz!" Ms. Bitters snarled. "What is it?"

"M-Ms. Bitters! I'm sorry but there's-! There's a platypus in this desk!"

She was really freaking out. The entire class watched her, highly amused.

"Oh my, God!" she was saying. "Holy-! I think it's still alive! Oh my, God! How long has it been here!"

"Luz! Settle down!"

"But! But there's-!"

"QUIET!"

Luz shuddered and quieted down. Ms. Bitters glared at her, and a red tint suddenly came into the room. "Luz, if you can't settle down, I'll have you out of this classroom before you can say another word. I do not want to be interrupted again! Meet me after class, before the lunch break."

Luz looked down, a little shaken. "Yes, Ms. Bitters," she said quietly.

The rest of the class turned back around, the show over. Ms. Bitters kept talking. Apparently, her lecture wasn't over yet. Luz looked slowly up from her table to try and refocus on the lesson.

And that was the first time she noticed the boy with the glasses, sitting five rows in front of her, still staring at her intensely, a crease between his eyes

* * *

Later that same day, Luz walked into the cafeteria from the lunch line, carrying her tray. Her wrists still smarted, but the stinging had died down some. She stopped in the aisle way between the tables and scanned the room, looking for a place to sit. So many unfamiliar faces, and a lot of them looked openly hostile, as if she had committed some sort of crime. Eventually, her eyes rested on a group of girls she recognized from her class. She walked up to them and stood in front of their table, doing her best to smile.

"Hey, do you guys mind if I sit here?" she asked.

The girls looked at each other and then shrugged. Luz sat down, still smiling uncomfortably. "So," she began. "What are your names?"

The girls' eyes all shifted towards her with a strange expression, as if they had just seen her swallow a bug. Luz felt as though a solid wall had sprung up around her. Deciding that maybe talking to them wasn't the best, Luz turned to her tray.

And nearly threw up inside of her own mouth.

The thing was, the food didn't exactly look edible. It was rather slimy and covered with a thin film, crusty in places it shouldn't be and transparent in other places it shouldn't be. It smelled awful, too. The stench reminded her of something dead. She grimaced and picked up her fork, slowly prodding the stuff with it. She began to wonder how well she could get through the day without eating.

"Hey," one of the girls said.

Luz looked up, grateful for some acknowledgment and an excuse to look up from her tray. "Uh, yes?" she asked.

"You're new, right?" The girl asked. She had long blue hair and a rather square head.

"Yeah," said Luz slowly. "That's what I said when class started. And you are?"

"Sara," she said, narrowing her eyes. She looked down. "What happened to your pants?"

Luz looked down at her ripped and faded jeans and flushed. "Sorry about that," she said. "I was jumped by a dog this morning. Nearly killed me."

"A dog?" The other girls at the table were starting to show interest. "Did it bite you?"

"No," said Luz. "I think it just wanted attention. Ruined my jeans, though." She realized how unnecessary that sentence was at the last minute and looked down at her tray again, embarrassed.

"Hey, I think I've seen that dog," said another girl further down.

Luz looked up. "You have?"

"Yeah," the girl said. "It was big and gray? Red eyes? Spiked collar?"

"Yeah!" said Luz, getting excited.

"Yeah, that dog didn't want attention," the girl said. She sipped on her juice box.

"Oh." Luz looked back down at her tray.

There was another moment of awkward silence.

"So where are you from?" the same girl asked. She was smiling in Luz's direction.

Luz smiled back. "Oh, not very far," she said. "I moved up here last week from Somewhere Else."

"Hey, I think I have an uncle that lives up there," said a purple-haired girl sitting next to Sara. (Zita, Luz remembered.)

"Really?" Luz asked. "That's cool."

"So why'd you move?"

"Well, my dad just got a new job in the city, so of course we had to follow him," said Luz.

"Wow. Here?" the girl said, looking at Luz with an expression of pity. "That stinks."

Luz laughed. "Yeah, well. It could be worse."

"Making friends with Platypus Girl, are you Aki?" someone yelled. The girl, Aki, shot them a dirty look. Luz flushed.

"I… I really don't want to be called Platypus Girl," she said.

Everyone at the table burst out laughing. A little louder than necessary, Luz thought.

"Hey, you need to be careful around Ms. Bitters," another girl said, still laughing.

"Yeah, she'll mess you up good."

"She's not human!"

"You better watch it, or you'll end up dead!"

Luz smiled weakly, unsure of whether or not that was the correct response. "Thanks for the tip," she said. "I think I realize all that now."

"Bet there wasn't anything like her at your old school, huh?" asked Sara, raising an eyebrow.

"Actually," began Luz, laughing a little. "There was this one guy who taught chemistry; he-"

But here, she stopped. Something had just caught her eye. Across the room, sitting five tables down from her, sat the same dark, bespectacled boy she had seen in Ms. Bitters class. He was still glaring at her. Actually, glaring wasn't quite a strong enough word. Luz felt like she was being cross-examined, interrogated, persecuted, just by that stare alone. Coupled with his long black coat and the white gleam off of his glasses, he looked terribly sinister. Luz shuddered.

"Hey, what's the matter?" asked Aki.

Luz's eyes flicked over to Aki and then back to the boy. She saw his eyes narrow. His expression seemed to say, "Don't you try anything. I'm watching you."

"It's that guy over there," Luz admitted. "He keeps staring at me. It's creeping me out."

Aki looked over. So did Sara and Zita. As soon as their eyes found the boy, all three of them frowned, their eyes narrowed. Luz was a little amazed. She had never seen three people coordinate their expressions so perfectly.

Aki scoffed. "That's just Dib," she said, still eyeing the boy. Every word of that three-word sentence dripped with disdain. "Don't pay any attention to him."

"Why?" asked Luz. "Who is he?"

"I told you; he's Dib. Ech, he's looking at us now. Don't look at him." Everyone at the table looked away except for Luz. Dib didn't react to the group shunning. He continued to stare, his teeth clenched. He leaned over and muttered something to a younger girl sitting next to him. The girl paid him no mind, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Well, what's wrong with him?" asked Luz, turning her gaze back to the group.

"'What's wrong with him?'" Zita repeated incredulously. "Just look at him! He's completely crazy; that's what's wrong with him!"

"Crazy how?" asked Luz, raising an eyebrow.

"He says the weirdest things about everybody," said Sara, scowling. "He believes in like, aliens and ghosts and stuff, and he says that he sees them all the time. Totally crazy." Sara popped her straw in her mouth and nodded, satisfied with her verdict. But Luz was intrigued.

"He…" Luz's eyes shifted over to Dib and back. "He doesn't seem to like me."

"He doesn't like anybody," said Aki. "Apparently we're not smart enough for him."

"He's a freak, a total freak," piped in a blonde girl further down. "And he's totally rude to everybody."

"Hey, are you guys talking about Dib?"

Luz looked up. A brawny boy in a sports jacket was sitting at the table next door and had apparently overheard them. He leaned backwards over the edge of his seat, aiming to join the conversation. Luz was beginning to realize that bashing Dib was a common pastime at this school.

"Yeah," said Sara. "Got anything to say?"

"'Course I do," the boy answered, now wearing the same disdainful look as everyone else. "He's a total loser. One of these days, I'm gonna pound 'im!" And he jabbed his fist in the air to demonstrate.

"Why?" asked Luz. "What did he do to you?"

"He told me my hamster was possessed," the boy said. He looked furious, as though this slight had brought dishonor upon his entire family.

"Really?" asked Luz, her eyes widening.

"Yeah, you should have heard him, going on and on like that," he spat. "'Your hamster's not normal,' he said. 'It's eyes are glowing red,' he said. 'Now it's speaking Latin,' he said. 'Oh, God help me,' he said." His voice was hurt and mocking.

Luz was utterly confused. "Um," she said uncertainly. "Don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds like your hamster _is_ possessed."

"Augh, now don't you start!" Zita yelled, disgusted. Everyone now turned to stare at Luz. She thought she felt an icy chill form on the back of her neck.

"I didn't say that," she said quickly, defensively waving her hands in front of her.

"You better not have," said Sara warningly. "You don't want to end up like him, do you?"

By now a crowd had started to form around the table. It was made up entirely of angry kids, and all of them, it seemed, had something to say.

"He said there's a ghoul living under my house," said one girl.

"He told me my brother was a robot," said a boy.

"He told me he found a spaceship in his backyard," said another.

"Um, I never thought he was so bad," said a purple-haired girl in the back. Nobody paid any attention to this.

"HE TOLD ME MY DADDY WAS A YETI!" screamed an orange-haired boy in anguish.

"He said there's a colony of rat people living at the mall."

"He said there was a pirate ghost in the gym."

"He said Chickenfoot isn't real!"

"He said my mom was a witch."

"He said my aunt was an esper."

"He said that the school president was brainwashed."

"He said that ZIM is an alien."

"He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said He said"

"Don't you listen to a word he says," Sara finally cut in. The group immediately became silent, a lot of them nodding solemnly, eyes fixed on Luz. "If you're not careful, you'll catch his crazy."

Luz frowned. "I don't think crazy is really contagious," she said.

"Oh, it is," said Zita. "Believe me, it is."

Luz turned around, once more, to stare at the boy behind her. Dib looked up at her, and, for one second, their eyes met. Dib scowled, but this time Luz didn't look away. In spite of everything her classmates said, or perhaps, because of it, she found herself fascinated by the boy in the black jacket. The boy who, it seemed, had successfully united the entire school against him.

* * *

The clock struck three, and the bell rang again. School was out. Time for everyone to go home.

Luz shifted her backpack on her shoulder and looked out from the front door of the school. The sign, "SKOOL," over the entrance flashed orange in the light of the crimson sky. Children streamed around her and out across the front lawn, walking to buses, to friends, to parents waiting in cars with the engines running. Luz watched them go for a moment before taking a deep breath and trotting down the front steps to the sidewalk. Unlike all of these kids, she had to walk home, and it was a fairly long way. She reached the sidewalk and turned left, walking along through the fumes of the buses. The longer she walked, the fewer kids and cars she saw, until finally she was the only one by the street.

It was only when she was halfway home that she stopped and looked behind her. After a few seconds of waiting, she walked on, a little slower. She had just had the eerie feeling that she was being watched. But by who? There was no one here. Luz was a little wary, but not terribly afraid. Her worst fear was that it would be the dog again, and she had managed to outrun it the last time, so there wouldn't be too much of a problem if it showed up again. At the very worst, she would get a bit of a scare. The idea that anyone else might be following her didn't cross her mind.

Suddenly, she heard a rustling noise behind her. She whirled around. Nothing. A leaf blew across the road, touched the sidewalk briefly, and went on its way. Luz stared for a minute, very concerned now, before slowly taking a few steps back. When still nothing happened, she huffed a sigh and turned around.

And came face to face with Dib.

Luz screamed, more out of shock than anything else, and clutched her backpack in front of her with her arms crossed. "Wha-What the-?" she yelled, baffled. "Where did you come from?"

Dib didn't answer this question. Luz didn't really expect him to. He was eyeing Luz with an odd kind of scowl, as if she were someone dangerous that he knew he could stop. He took a step forward.

"Listen here, Luz," he said, pointing. "I just want you to know that I'm watching you."

"Look, I've got a phone with me, and if you try anything, I'll call the police," said Luz, really scared now.

"Don't give me that," said Dib, crossing his arms. "Pretending to be all wide-eyed and innocent. You'll just have to try harder…"

"Seriously, where did you come from? Were you following me all the way from school?"

"… Because I'm a bit smarter than that," Dib went on, ignoring her. "Whatever it is you're up to, I'll put a stop to it. It's no use trying to hide what you are. You'd better consider going back to your own galaxy if you're planning any trouble."

"Wait, galaxy?" asked Luz, lowering her backpack. Suddenly, everything her classmates had said to her at lunch came racing back. "Wait a minute. You… You actually think that I'm something? Like… like an alien or whatever?"

"Well obviously," said Dib, as if she was thick for not realizing this sooner. "You can't just be an ordinary human. All of the past few new kids have been aliens, who's to say that you're not one, too?"

"You're crazy!" said Luz indignantly. "I'm not an alien!"

Dib smiled, but his eyes remained narrow. "We'll see, won't we?" he said. "We'll see."

Before Luz could even blink, Dib vanished and reappeared behind her. Luz jumped and looked over her shoulder, leaning away from him warily. "You're… you're fast," she said meekly.

Dib didn't respond. He had his hand on his mouth and one eyebrow pulled down, apparently deep in concentration. Luz couldn't tell, but he was actually staring fixedly at her back. "Well," he said. "You don't have a PAK, so you can't be Irken."

For a moment, his confidence seemed to waver. But he recovered almost immediately. "But that doesn't matter," he said. "You could be some other kind of alien! Or some other kind of phenomena entirely! You could be a vampire, or a werewolf, or a sparkle-fairy!"

He took a step and leaned toward her accusingly. "Are you a sparkle-fairy, Luz?" he asked.

Luz stared. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she said, "And frankly, you're making me feel uncomfortable."

Dib folded his arms and sighed impatiently. "Didn't I just tell you not to play dumb with me?" he said.

"This is ridiculous!" Luz protested. "I'm human! One hundred percent human! You don't have anything to gain by yelling at me like this!"

"Oh, really?" asked Dib, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, really," Luz snapped. "For instance." Her eyes wandered over to the red sky above them, and she smiled shrewdly at Dib. "For instance," she repeated, pointing up with one hand. "I can't be a vampire because I'm walking around in the daylight. Vampires burn in the daylight."

Luz was still smirking, expecting Dib to fly into a rage about how she shouldn't patronize him, how she wasn't taking him seriously, how she shouldn't be preoccupied with myths because this was the real world filled with real dangers.

So she was shocked when Dib quieted down and lowered his gaze, apparently pacified by her remark. "Well, I guess that's true," he said conversationally. "That rules out that. Huh. I guess I've been so preoccupied with aliens that I've fallen behind on my vampire lore."

Luz was only half-listening to these comments. All she could think was, _He took that seriously. He actually took that seriously. _

"You're crazy," she muttered, staring at him. "Absolutely crazy."

Dib looked up, registered her comment, then rolled his eyes. "'Crazy,'" he repeated spitefully. "Of course you're saying that. They all say that. You're just mimicking _them."_ He looked away from Luz, and his expression had become hard and angry. "They all call me crazy," he said. "And you know what? Maybe I am! Maybe I am crazy! But I'll tell you something else," He turned back to Luz and glared right into her eyes. "I see more and know more than anyone else in this city! Maybe even on this planet! And half the time, I think the reason people won't listen to me is because they're scared, scared of what I've seen. Of what I know."

Luz was miffed. "What an arrogant thing to say!" she cried.

"Maybe so," Dib snapped. "But as far as I know, it's true. And no one has been able to prove any different."

Now it was Luz's turn for her expression to harden. Her hands tightened on her backpack and her teeth clenched together. Something in what Dib was saying struck a tone somewhere in her mind, and it bothered her. "That's awful," she said, scowling. "You're awful. Saying those things, putting yourself above everyone else on the planet; you make me sick!" All her fear was gone. She straightened up and took a step towards Dib. In her mind, the words she had heard from her classmates were whirling around and around like flies. "You actually expect me to take you seriously!" she snapped. "With all your talk of aliens and vampires! None of those things are real! Everyone knows that! And yet you actually go around believing in these things! You're a freak!" And she spat the word, emphasized it, "_freak,"_ and waited.

For a moment, Dib seemed stunned, apparently taken aback by her words. He stared at her for a few seconds, blankly, unsure of how to react. Luz kept glaring at him, challenging him to say something, something that would prove her, that would prove the whole school wrong.

But instead, his face dulled and he looked at Luz as if he was disappointed with her. "'Freak,' huh?" he muttered. "That figures. I should've known."

"What's that?" snapped Luz.

"I should've known." He said it louder this time. His eyes were level with Luz's, and he spoke flatly with no interest in his voice. "You're not anything special. You're just like the rest of them. Just as ignorant as they are. Just as stupid as they are." He sighed and straightened himself up. "Sorry to bother you," he said bitterly. "Looks like I was wrong, and I don't have time to waste like this. Just forget that I ever talked to you. I'll see you around." And he turned to go.

But Luz wasn't to be calmed so easily. "'Ignorant?'" she repeated incredulously. Then, angrily: "'Stupid?' Now wait just a minute!" Slinging her backpack over her arm, she ran up to him and caught him by the shoulder. He stopped and turned his head wearily.

"Look here!" she said indignantly. "You can't just say something like that and walk away!"

"Why not?" asked Dib flatly.

"What do you mean, 'Why not?'" Luz snapped. "It's totally mean!"

"So?" asked Dib. "Why should I care about that? You already hate me, and you won't listen. Why should I care about pleasing you?"

Luz bristled like a cat, incensed. "Have you ever considered that maybe this is why everyone hates you!" she shouted. "Because you're such a jerk!"

Dib straightened up, and a little bit of the angry look came back into his eyes. "I don't have time to be nice to everyone!" he said. "I've got a world to save, and everyone is either actively trying to stop me or isn't doing anything at all!"

"'A world to save'!" Luz honestly couldn't believe what she was hearing. "From what!"

"From ZIM, of course!"

"Zim?"

Luz paused. The name struck a bell. "Hold on," she said, releasing Dib's shoulder. "Hold on. Zim? Isn't that the name of someone in our class?"

Dib didn't answer right away. He was giving Luz the strangest look she had ever received. "You're… you're kidding, right?" he asked.

Luz shook her head. "Seriously, is he?" she asked.

Dib's eyebrows came down and he whirled to face Luz. "You've got to be kidding!" he protested. "You've got to be! You honestly don't know who I'm talking about? When I say, 'This kid is an alien,' you don't know who I mean?"

Luz frowned. "It's only my first day!" she said defensively. "There were a lot of kids; I didn't notice that much!"

"You've got to be kidding!" Dib yelled again. "You didn't notice ZIM! He's got to be the easiest person to pick out in a crowd ever!"

"I'm not very observant!"

"He's got green skin, for crying out loud!"

"I'm sorry," said Luz, holding her hands up apologetically. "I didn't notice anyone like that!"

"Oh come on!" yelled Dib. (Luz was a little relieved that he had recovered himself so quickly, in spite of herself.) "He sits right in the front row! Right in front of the door! He's the first thing you see when you walk in!"

"Wait," said Luz, slowly raising her hand to her chin. It stopped halfway and hovered in front of her neck. She suddenly recalled something from class. "Wait," she said again. "Front row? Are you talking about that loud kid?"

Dib slapped himself in the forehead in frustration. Luz watched, fascinated. She had never seen a real person do that. "Yes," he said slowly. "Yes. I'm talking. About. The loud kid."

Then, to Luz's bewilderment, he looked down and began to mutter to himself vigorously.

"The loud kid. The _loud_ kid. That's what she called him. Not the alien kid. Not the green-skinned kid. Not even the kid with no ears. No, it's the loud kid. The _loud _kid. Well, to be fair, I guess it's true. He _is_ pretty loud…"

"Um," said Luz loudly, cutting in. "Are you alright?"

"Wha-?" Dib looked up. He blinked for a minute in Luz's direction, as if he had just remembered that she was there. "Oh, yeah. Fine." He paused. "Was I talking to myself?"

Luz nodded.

He looked back down and sighed wearily. "Yeah, I do that sometimes," he said.

There was an awkward moment where the two children stood still, looking down at the sidewalk, both equally unsure of what to say to the other.

It was Dib who was the first to speak up. "Well," he said. "I'll see you around." He turned to go.

"Wait!" called Luz.

Dib turned and looked at her without interest. He waited.

"Um…" Luz faltered. She had called out; she didn't want him to leave just yet, but she still didn't fully understand why. Perhaps it was because this person was so unlike anyone else she had met before. Perhaps it was because he had transitioned from unbelievable things that were faceless and nonexistent to her to an unbelievable thing that existed right in front of her, that she could know and see everyday. Perhaps it was simply because she wasn't looking forward to walking home by herself after things had been so lively. Whatever the reason, all of her anger and all of the things her classmates had said had been forgotten. Luz wanted to talk some more.

"What… What makes you think Zim's an alien?" she finally asked.

Dib sighed. "I don't think he's an alien," he said. "I know for a fact he's an alien."

"How?"

"I've been inside his base!" he yelled, getting animated again. "I've seen his technology and his ship! I've taken tons of pictures of him without his disguise!"

"Disguise?" Luz asked. ("Pictures?" she thought. _"Tons_ of pictures?")

"Yeah," said Dib. "He wears a wig and a pair of contact lenses."

"That's all?" asked Luz, frowning.

Dib nodded. "That's all," he said. "And yet it's enough to fool everyone, including you!"

Luz reigned in the impulse to snap back at the slight. She was intrigued, and she didn't want to be sidetracked again. "Well, what does he look like?" she asked.

Dib thought for a moment. "Sort of like a big bug, I guess," he said. "Compact eyes. Antennae."

"Whoa," said Luz, inadequately. She tried to imagine it, but she didn't even know what ZIM looked like with his disguise, so she failed. "And… why is he here?"

"Why else?" asked Dib. "To conquer Earth."

Luz's eyes widened. "Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously!" Dib shouted. "He's an Irken, that's the name of his race, and he comes from an empire full of conquering bug-things. They've already conquered a bunch of other planets, and they have a huge military. ZIM says he's an Invader, which I think means he's a professional conqueror, or something. His leaders sent him here to take over the earth and do horrible things to us!"

"He actually told you he's one of them!" Luz exclaimed, shocked.

"Oh yeah!" yelled Dib, throwing his arms in front of himself. "He brags about it all the time! He knows I can't prove he exists, the jerk." And he gnashed his teeth and shook his fist just to emphasize the point. Luz was beginning to realize this was more than just defending the earth. There was some personal tension in there, too.

"Has… Has he actually tried to take over the world, yet?" asked Luz, getting genuinely scared.

"Of course he has!" Dib shouted, exasperated by the question. Obviously, he had been waiting a long time to say all of this. "He tries something new almost everyday! I've had to save the world from him tons of times!"

"_You've_ had to save the world?" Luz asked, a little skeptically.

"Well, somebody has to!" Dib snapped. "I've saved the Earth from being exploded, from being enslaved by a crazy Santa suit, from being squished by Mars, from having all of its core pumped out of it like some kind of horrible-"

"Whoa, wait a minute!" interrupted Luz. "Core?" Something was tugging at the back of her memory, something from a while back. She gasped, remembering. "You mean Zim did that!" she asked, shocked.

Dib faltered for a minute. "Well… no," he admitted. "TAK was actually behind that one." He paused for a second, then resumed in his previous tone: "But, she wouldn't have come here at all if it weren't for ZIM!"

"O-okay…" said Luz slowly. She didn't bother asking who TAK was. She figured that the answer would just raise more questions. "But… But why does he want to take over the earth?"

"I told you! His leaders-!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know that," said Luz, cutting in again. "But why, though? What do we have that they want?"

Dib pointed and opened his mouth, about to say something, but a blank expression came over his face and he closed it. He stood still for a moment, pointing at Luz, before he stood up. He brought his pointer finger up to his chin and tapped it, and his eyes wandered to the top of his head, as if he was probing the very deepest recesses of his mind.

"Um," he began. "Well… I guess he's… Well… I mean… uh…"

Luz waited. "Yes?"

Dib didn't answer. He turned away from her abruptly and walked a few feet up the sidewalk. He then walked back to where he was standing before, apparently thinking hard. He made this circuit a few more times, back and forth, back and forth, wearing the same perplexed expression the entire time. On his final lap, he stopped in front of Luz, still searching up into his skull, and said hesitantly:

"Well, I guess if you press me, it's because he hates us. He hates all humans, me especially. He probably thinks he's doing the universe a favor by getting rid of us."

"Oh. That makes sense, I guess," said Luz. "But why did they send him here in the first place?"

Dib didn't respond. He was staring straight at Luz now, as if she had said something incredible, something that had opened up a new view of the world. Whatever this new view was, though, it wasn't a good one. Dib's expression was honestly less one of wonder and more one of dawning horror.

"I… Don't know," Dib said finally. This fact seemed greatly upsetting to him. "I honestly… I don't know!" He looked up at Luz with a lost expression on his face, as if asking for her help, and for the first time all day, Luz found herself feeling genuinely sorry for him. "I never thought of this before," he went on. "I mean, why? We have nothing of value that they want. Nothing they can't get elsewhere, anyway. So why? Why here? It can't be for the nice scenery… Or the nice people," he added bitterly.

"Uh-huh," said Luz noncommittally. Over the course of the day, she had begun to comprehend Dib's issues with people.

"I don't get it," Dib muttered to himself. "I don't get it. What's he after? What are they after?"

"Did you ever think, maybe," Luz began, "That you two are going through all of this for no reason?"

Dib looked at Luz, and the expression on his face reminded her of a puppy that had been kicked and then spat on. She instantly regretted the remark, but too late; she had already said it. For one awful second, Dib wavered visibly.

"I don't know," he said again. "I…"

But then he cut himself off and shook his head roughly, as if to clear it. He grunted aloud angrily, as if chastising himself, then turned back and glared accusingly at Luz.

"No!" he exclaimed. "Don't you dare try to sidetrack me! There is a reason for what I'm doing! I have to believe that! I'm the sole defender of Earth! It's my job to defend the world from ZIM and his evil, no matter what his _reason_ for being here is! And even if he doesn't have a reason, then that doesn't matter because he's still here, and he's still trying to destroy us all, and I won't rest until he's stopped! Not even when I sleep!"

And here, he folded his arms and waited, as if expecting Luz to try and lead him astray again. But Luz had no such plans. In reality, she was excited. Dib's speech had inspired her, made something stir in her head, and, rather than seeing the bleak second view that Dib had seen, Luz felt as if a whole new horizon was opening up to her, beckoning to her with possibilities.

"You really believe in all of this, don't you?" Luz asked, awed.

"Well, of course I do!" yelled Dib. "Weren't you listening to a single thing I-!"

"That's not what I meant," Luz interrupted, smiling

Dib stopped and stared at Luz, taken aback. "Oh," he said. "I see."

"Sorry," said Luz. "It's just that…" She stopped and looked up at the sky. The trees rustled in the wind and scattered their leaves under the crimson vault above them. Luz smiled again and looked back at Dib. "It's just that you put up with so much. Every time you come to school, everyone is always telling you that you're wrong. I saw you sitting by yourself at lunch today. The entire school has totally shunned you, and you have to put up with that everyday. But even through all that, you still believe so strongly in what you're doing! You never lose sight of what's really important to you. That's cool. That's really cool, Dib!"

Dib stared at Luz, stunned. A thousand explanations for what he had just heard ran through his head. She was lying, she was making fun of him, she was leading him on, there was no way she had said any of that, no way in heaven or Earth. And yet, she seemed so genuine. There was such a strong tone of admiration in her voice; it was difficult to doubt it. Slowly, it dawned on Dib just what this meant, and he looked at Luz with renewed interest.

"So…" he began slowly, "Does this mean…" Suddenly, he broke out in a broad smile, and there was a glimmer of hope in his eyes that hadn't been there before. The transformation was a bit sudden, and it scared Luz a little. "Does this mean that you believe me?" he asked eagerly.

"Well…" Luz hesitated. "Honestly? I don't really know." She sighed. "I mean, you seem like you're telling the truth, but it's just too fantastic!"

"Oh, I am!" said Dib earnestly. "I totally am! And I can prove it, too!"

He reached into the pocket of his trench coat and pulled out a small digital camera. Luz looked at it with interest.

"Is that where you keep-?"

"Yup!" interrupted Dib happily. "Most of the pictures I took in the last week are in here." ("The last week?" thought Luz. _"Most_ of them?") "Just look through these," he said, "And you'll see that I'm right. Wow!" he added happily. "I usually don't get this far." And he eagerly held the camera out to her.

Luz looked at the camera and smiled. "Well, alright!" she said. She reached out her arm and was about to grab it when, suddenly, she stopped and pulled back. Something had just occurred to her. "Wait, no! Don't show me those, yet," she said, frowning.

"What?" Dib held his camera in front of him limply, and the look on his face was like that of a child who had just been denied a fantastic treat. "Why not?" he asked impatiently.

Luz looked at Dib worriedly, arguing with herself over the best way to say this. "Well," she began. "I don't want to see those pictures before I form my own opinion because…" She paused and lowered her gaze warily. "Because they might be fake," she finished.

Dib's reaction was exactly what Luz had feared. "Fake?" he exclaimed, insulted. "Fake!"

"Look," said Luz apologetically. "Don't take this the wrong way. I mean, I want to believe you, Dib; I really do! It's just that… this is all too bizarre! Yesterday I knew for a fact that there was no such thing as aliens, and now all the sudden they exist. In my school, no less! It's too much too fast."

Dib looked puzzled. Obviously, he didn't understand her problem, but he lowered his camera all the same. "Well," he said slowly. "What do you want to do?"

Luz thought for a moment. "I want to see him for myself," she said finally. "Before you show me any proof, before you tell me anything else, I want to make my own judgment call. The three of us are all in the same class, aren't we? I'll just keep an eye out for him, and then I'll decide for myself whether or not he's an alien."

Dib looked skeptical. "Really?" he said, a little coldly. "You're going to keep an eye out for him? Are you sure you know what kid to look for?" His voice was sarcastic and degrading.

Luz frowned, debating how to respond. "I'll look around," she said finally. "I'll try to pay more attention, I promise. You said he sits in front of the door, right?"

Dib still didn't look pacified, but he nodded. "That's right," he said.

"So," she said. "Now, I know where to look. I'll watch him for a while, and then I'll come to you during lunch and tell you what I feel, okay?"

She smiled weakly, waiting for his answer. Dib's expression did not change. He looked at her out of the side of his glasses, frowning. Finally: "Okay," he said. "I guess that seems fair."

Luz breathed out a sigh that she didn't know she had been holding in. "Great!" she said relieved. "Well, I guess I'll-"

"Just one thing, though," Dib cut in.

Luz blinked, taken aback. "Uh, yes?" she said.

"I don't want you wasting my time," said Dib flatly. "If you really want to help defeat ZIM, then great. I could use all the help I can get. But listen, I've had people tell me they believe me before. They said that they would listen to what I say, that they wanted to help me. They were all lying, just wasting my time."

Luz began to protest. "I wouldn't-!"

"Oh, sure, you say you wouldn't," Dib cut in. "But how do I know that you mean it? Or maybe today, you do mean it, but what about tomorrow, after you've had a chance to sleep and realize just how crazy I am?"

Luz lowered her gaze. "I…" she began. But she couldn't think of what else to say.

"So, listen," Dib went on. "I don't want you coming up to me tomorrow unless you're absolutely sure you want to get involved in this. This is serious stuff I do. Fate-of-the-world stuff. And if you're not completely willing to devote your life to this, then don't bother talking to me tomorrow. Or ever."

Luz looked at Dib for a second, a little hurt. But then she shook her head and smiled. "That won't be a problem," she said. "I won't let you down, Dib. It's a deal." And she held out her hand.

Dib looked down at her outstretched hand, a little surprised. He glanced up from it to Luz's expectant face, then back down. Then his eyes narrowed, and looked away.

"We'll talk about deals once you're convinced," he said. He turned his back to her and began to walk away when he stopped. "I'll see you tomorrow," he said. And then, as if as afterthought, added: "Maybe." Then he abruptly broke into a run down the sidewalk, the hem of his jacket flaring behind him in the wind.

Luz stared after him for a moment, her hand still held out in front of her. Then she slowly lowered it, shifted her backpack on her shoulder, and resumed her walk home, her pace a little slower than it had been before, her mind racing faster than it ever had.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Now I what you're thinking. "What the h, man? You open up with an action plot, and then you throw us into Mary Sue-land? Shame on you!"

Yeah, well, sorry. There will be more action to come, plenty more action, I promise, but first, I need to get this out of the way. As painful as it is to admit, stories can't be all action all the time. We would get way to dizzy.

In case you couldn't tell, this chapter takes place in the past, before ZIM took over. The timeline is, eh, somewhere between "Ten Minutes to Doom" and "The Trial." "Day of da Spookies" hasn't happened, yet, so no SKOODGE, either.

I wonder how many of you actually know what I'm talking about. Probably more than there should be.

I apologize in advance if Luz comes across as a little sue-ish. I'm trying to avoid that dark and miserable path, but if you feel like I'm not doing a good job of that, then please tell me. Nicely. The internet frightens me sometimes.

Though, honestly, you should probably be feeling a little sorry for Luz. I mean, that's gotta be a pretty frightening experience, right? Imagine: you're just walking along down the side walk, minding your own business, when, suddenly, DIB.

Terrifying.

More to come. Enjoy.


	3. The Loud Kid

**The Loud Kid**

The next morning found Luz pressed with her back against the wall outside the door of Ms. Bitters's classroom, anxiously listening to the chatter of the children inside.

Luz craned her neck in just enough to look at the clock on the wall above the blackboard. The time was 8:50. Ten minutes to the bell. Quite early for Luz, who was something of a late riser. Luz quickly whipped her head back into the hallway, not daring to look around the room, hardly daring even to breathe.

Her meeting with Dib the day before had left quite an impression on her. For the rest of her walk home, while she was doing her homework, all throughout dinner, even as she was greeting her parents after their day of work, Dib's words continued to swirl around in her mind, and the idea they presented continued to pop up in spite of whatever she was attempting to concentrate on. The idea, that inescapable idea, that there was an alien posing as a kid in her school, _in her school_ (No matter how she thought about it, she couldn't get over those words.), an alien who wanted to destroy all of humanity, an alien who _had tried to_ several times. And the only thing that was standing in the way was… It was fantastic. Unreal. She couldn't get over it. She couldn't sleep that night, either from fear or excitement, she couldn't tell. On one hand: fear. There was an alien, an alien who was out to destroy everything, who might be planning to destroy everything at this very moment. On the other hand… She lay awake with her eyes shut, desperately waiting for the morning to come.

She hadn't forgotten her promise to Dib. The next morning, a full half-hour before her alarm was set to go off, Luz decided it was useless to lie in bed any longer and threw herself up with gusto. She dressed hurriedly, trembling with anticipation, before sprinting downstairs. Her parents had already left for the day, so she grabbed a cereal bar out of the pantry, shoved in her mouth, grabbed her backpack, and bolted outside, kicking the door shut behind her as she went.

That had been earlier. She had sprinted almost the entire way to Skool. Then, she had felt so ready, so ready to see the alien, (The alien. She thought the words almost with veneration.), so ready to see once and for all whether or not Dib was telling the truth. It was only when the small red building actually loomed into view that she began to slow down. Not from fatigue but from anxiety.

Her pace continued to slow the rest of the way to Ms. Bitters's class. She jogged up the steps into the front door, walked down the long hallway to the classroom, and was doing a sort of hesitant step-by-step walk when she started to get close. When she actually saw the green interior of the classroom beside its wide-open door, Luz could hardly bear to take a step.

And that was how she had come to be here.

She felt ridiculous. It was the same classroom, the exact same kids. She had strolled in there several times the day before, no problem, so why the hesitation now? She hated to admit it, but she knew why. It was because of the fear. The fear of what she would see in there, now that she actually knew to see. Would there really be an alien in there, sitting at a desk, as natural as anything? Or… would Dib be wrong? She hated both ideas. The first was only scary; the second was that and sickening. It was that truth, that reality she would face when she walked in; that was what she was afraid of.

She might have stood there all day, but instead she turned her head in to look at the clock again. She gasped a little. 8:55. Five minutes to the bell. She whipped her head back out and pressed herself even flatter against the wall. She sighed. It was either now or later. It might as well be now. She took a deep breath, tightened her hands on her backpack straps, stepped from the wall, and walked into the classroom.

For the fraction of a second before she took her first step in, she wondered, as Dib had the day before, whether she could even spot the kid she was supposed to be observing. Sure, she had defended herself against Dib, but the fact remained: she hadn't noticed him yesterday. She might not be able to notice him today. Then what would happen? Probably Dib would decide that she wasn't good enough to save the world. He had said that the alien sat right in front of the door, but that only added to her anxiety. She would be confronted with the truth the second she walked in. Everything would come down to that first glance.

So, naturally, Luz was immensely relieved, and confused, when she was able recognize the kid Dib meant perfectly.

The kid, the alien, was sitting a mere four feet from where Luz was. He was of a regular height for an elementary school kid and had blue eyes. And that was about where his normal qualities ended.

First of all, his skin _was_ green. Luz couldn't help but stare at it. It wasn't a vague tint of green, as Luz had imagined, but a full, rich lime-green, perfectly smooth and without any of the scars or deformities that she had seen on so many other children. Secondly, he _didn't_ have ears, or a nose, for that matter. The skin simply stretched over those places, with the obvious confidence that they were not there, had never been there, were not supposed to be there. His hair was black and curved up into a sort of rock star-esque cowlick. This seemed pretty normal, but Luz quickly remembered that the hair was a wig, and the eyes were contact lenses. She imagined insect eyes looking out from under those contacts, and the thought made her shudder.

His strangeness, however, did not stop there. Dib hadn't mentioned his clothes (and, honestly, Luz would have found it pretty strange if he had), but Luz could see that they were even more damning than his appearance. He was wearing a sort of red and black costume that struck Luz as very geometric, with lots of triangular shapes and stripes. His "shirt" seemed to be more of a ridiculously short dress. Instead of pants, he wore a pair of black tights (Tights! thought Luz. Of all things!) and on his feet were a pair of knee-high black boots. In addition, he also wore a thin black glove on each hand, whose edge went about halfway up the forearm. Altogether, the whole combination gave him a sort of bizarre, militaristic appearance, almost as if that strange costume was a… uniform.

Luz's first reaction was a sort of surprised satisfaction. There he was. She had been able to see him after all. Her second reaction was shock. The alien was real. Really here, really in this classroom. She felt the reality of this fact dart into her, like fish into a stream. Her third reaction was utter bewilderment… at herself. How on Earth had she not noticed him? How had no one in the entire class noticed him? Suddenly, Dib's frustration the day before made much more sense.

Her fourth, and final, reaction was fear. Fear of this thing, this creature sitting in front of her. He wasn't human. He couldn't be. She was in danger. The entire human race was in danger. She stood in front of the door and stared at him open-mouthed, once again unable to move… unable to breathe…

For all this emotion, the alien did not seem to notice Luz at first. In fact, if Luz hadn't been lost in her own amazement and horror, she would see that he didn't look to be on the verge of doing anything particularly dangerous. He was simply sitting at his desk, not really looking at anything in particular, his head propped up on one arm as he absent-mindedly tapped his desk with the finger of his other hand. However, after a few moments, something seemed to alert him to her presence. His eyes shifted over to where she was, and a questioning sort of look came into them. Luz jumped and recoiled, as if he had done something more than simply look at her.

"What?" the alien asked irritably. His voice sounded exactly the same as it had the day before, but now Luz noticed it. It was quite a bit higher than she recalled, too high-pitched, really, to be a child's voice. And yet, despite of this, there was a strange scratchy, almost guttural quality to it.

Luz was too busy noticing the voice to listen to the words the alien was saying. She continued to stare at him, only dimly aware that he was staring back. He soon became irritated with her silent, wide-eyed manner. "Well?" he asked coldly. "What do you want?"

Luz started, suddenly realizing that he was talking to her. "Um, nothing!" she answered hastily. She turned away from him and ran to her desk, not daring to look behind her.

Once she reached her desk, she slumped down in her chair and gasped for breath. She continued to breathe heavily and tried to begin the process of calming herself down. But it was difficult. Exceedingly difficult. _Dib was right. He is an alien! Oh my God! Oh my God!_ No words could be heard in her head but these.

The clock on the wall continued to tick, counting down from five minutes.

Gradually, Luz's breathing slowed and became softer. She removed her backpack and allowed it to slide slowly to the floor. She leaned forward and rested her forehead in her hand, slowly recovering herself.

It was only after a few minutes had passed that she began to consider that she might have overreacted. After all, the boy hadn't actually done or said anything to her to make it seem like he was an alien. He only looked strange; that was all. And who didn't look or sound a little strange these days? It seemed that half the people Luz saw on the street were marked by some deformity. This boy might have simply gotten the worst of it. There was no reason to trigger an alarm like that just yet.

And even if it turned out that he was an alien, his appearance alone was not sufficient evidence. Surely Dib would've pointed out his appearance to somebody in the past. It obviously was not enough for them, so it wouldn't be enough for her either. As far as proof went, it simply wouldn't do. No, Luz needed some other evidence, some other facts to convince her. But what? Where would she get evidence? Immediately, the pictures on Dib's camera entered her mind. She shooed them away, shaking her head in frustration as she did so. No, she had sworn that she would convince herself with no one's help but her own. _"My own judgment call…_", those were the words she had used. She would simply have to find her own proof, without Dib's help.

She frowned and looked down at her desk, crestfallen. _Somehow…_ she thought sadly.

Just then, as if on cue, five seconds before the bell rang, Dib sprinted into class and vaulted over the desk into his seat. Luz started when she saw him and looked towards the front of the room earnestly, waiting for him to greet her, to acknowledge that they had spoken yesterday…

But either Dib had chose not to or he didn't have the time because he didn't once glance towards the back of the room. He simply took his seat and faced the blackboard, breathless.

Just as the clock struck nine and the bell rang, a long shadow suddenly appeared over the blackboard. It solidified and pried itself from the wall. A sick sort of organic snapping noise was heard as the shadow freed itself and manifested behind the teacher's desk. It was Ms. Bitters.

She slithered over to Dib's desk and glared at him disdainfully. "Dib," she hissed. "I see that you're here on time. For once."

"Yes, ma'am," answered Dib, still panting. None of the students could see Dib's eyes flicker over in ZIM's direction and back for a half-second as he said this. But Ms. Bitters could see it, and she snarled.

"Make sure you're on time from now on," she growled, and she whirled back to the front of the room.

"Yes, ma'am," Dib said again, and the day's lesson began.

All through the lesson, Luz kept waiting for Dib to turn around, to nod at her, to give her some sort of acknowledgement. After he had spent so much time staring at her the day before, she thought it wouldn't be a huge deal for him to turn around just once. But he did not.

The first acknowledgement he gave her was at lunch. As Luz was walking by with her tray, her eyes travelled automatically over to where Dib had sat the day before. He was there today, sitting by the same younger girl as yesterday. As she moved past his table, he looked up, and their eyes met again. Luz stopped in place and looked at him uncertainly. Should she sit with him? The question hung there in the air between the two of them.

Dib looked at Luz with recognition and with a question of his own in his eyes. He didn't ask it aloud, he simply looked for the answer on Luz's face. Apparently, the answer he wanted wasn't there because his look suddenly became more serious. He narrowed his eyes at Luz, not in an angry or suspicious way, but in a way that was meant to be solemn and piercing. Luz remembered his words from the day before. _"Not unless you're absolutely sure…"_ No, she couldn't sit with him today. She wasn't completely sure yet. So, she nodded at him to show that she understood and walked over to the table with Aki and the others.

And all through lunch as the girls chattered, Luz remained mostly silent, only dimly listening to what they were saying. She was lost in thought. Where would she get the other proof she needed? Where?

* * *

"Luz, come here."

The 3:00 bell had just rung and the students were packing up to leave. Dib and the other boy had both rushed out of the door before anyone else. Luz had been nearly out the door herself when Ms. Bitters called her name, her rasping voice heard easily over the chatter of the students. Luz shuddered head to foot and turned around unwillingly. She slowly slinked to the front of the room, like someone who is dragged there by force. "Y-yes, Ms. Bitters?" she asked fearfully.

She was expecting the worst, but Ms. Bitters only scooted forward something that was lying on her desk. "Here," she hissed. "This is for you."

Luz reached out a tentative hand and grabbed the thing on the edge of the desk. It was a small booklet, bound by a series of plastic rings. On the cover was a picture of the student body president giving an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

"That is your school directory," Ms. Bitters explained, pointing at the booklet. "Each students gets one. Everything you need to bother the other children while they're at home is in that book."

Luz opened the directory and flipped through it. She came to a random name: **Smacky, Torque. **Underneathwas an address, followed by a few phone numbers. Luz nodded and flipped it closed. "Thank you, Ms. Bitters," she said, attempting to smile.

"GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!"

"Okay!" Luz cried. She clutched the directory against her chest and sprinted out the door.

Once she was in the hallway, however, she began to slow down. She looked behind her to make sure that she had gotten away from Ms. Bitters and then flicked the directory open again. She flipped through the pages, searching, before stopping on the page with Dib's name. She noted, with a flicker of irritation, that there appeared to be a printing error on the last name; it was completely indiscernible. She did notice, however, that there was another name next to Dib's: **Gaz.** Did Dib have a sibling? Luz thought back to the girl sitting next to him at lunch, shrugged, and looked down the page. There, she saw, was Dib's address and his videophone number, too. Luz smiled, snapped the book closed, and was about to walk home when she stopped. Something had just occurred to her.

But, no. Surely not. It was far too easy.

She stood in the hallway, thinking it over, before she quickly brought out the book and flipped through it, faster this time. What was the boy's name again? Zack? No. Zed? No, that wasn't it. Zig? Zag? Zim! That was it: Zim. She continued her search.

And then, there. On the very last page was this heading:

**ZIM (no surname given)**

Luz stared at the name, then slowly, almost fearfully, looked down the page.

There was only one phone number and an address. Luz stared at that address for a few minutes, her mind working furiously, before she took a deep breath, tucked the directory under her arm, and started toward the front door.

* * *

She had never seen a house like this.

Luz stood on the corner of the sidewalk. Across from her was an enormous cul-de-sac, surrounded on all sides by a multitude of tall, red buildings. All of them looked similar, and Luz suspected that they might have been apartment buildings. All of them, that is, except for one.

Luz stared at it, her mouth agape. The house was small and skinny, the smallest she had ever seen. It stood in a tiny lot between two of the red buildings at the very head of the cul-de-sac, as if it ruled over them all. Despite its size, there was something sinister about the house. For one thing, it didn't stand up straight. Its roof had a jagged, uneven appearance, not as if it needed repair, but as if it was jutting upward into the heavens. In fact, the whole structure had a character of jutting. Its windows, its door, even its very shape were all at unnatural angles, seemingly jabbing themselves towards the sky. And where the house wasn't stabbing the sky, it was stabbing the buildings next to it. A cluster of thick gray wires flowed out of the sides of the house and attached themselves to the two buildings next door. The house appeared to have strung itself between the two buildings, like a spider sitting in its web. The house itself was green, a similar shade to ZIM's skin, and its roof and its door were an odd purple color. Even the windows were lit with an eerie purple and red light. There was yellow fence around its front yard, even though none of the other buildings seemed to have one.

Luz was dumbfounded. She thought perhaps that there had been some mistake, that she was at the house of some artist, or maybe a sort of haunted house, the kind that you paid a dollar for up front and went into with your friends, giggling at the plastic horrors all around you. But no. Luz looked down at her directory and checked. This was the right address. This was ZIM's house.

She looked back up at the house then around the cul-de-sac. Nobody was around. It was a little chilly; possibly, everyone was inside. Still, the street's deserted appearance did not help her nerves. She gulped, packed up the directory, and walked stiffly over to the green house.

She crossed the circle of street, at a walk not unlike a military march. The house seemed to grow larger as she approached it; suddenly, it didn't seem so little anymore. By the time she was up to the fence, it loomed over her, a psychedelic, jagged goliath.

She marched up the walkway to the front door, looking around her nervously as she did so. The lawn around her was filled with plastic animals, or, at least, some parody of plastic animals. Everything around her had a cartoonish and sinister shape, with huge, bulging eyes. In fact, everything about these decorations was huge. The lawn gnomes in particular made Luz uneasy. They were enormous, almost as tall as she was. Standing above all of these things was a large white flag, bearing the words, "I EARTH," with a red cartoon heart in between.

As she walked by, she swore she saw one of the lawn gnomes swivel its head around to follow her. But when she turned, the gnome's head was back in place. She walked on, a little faster.

Finally, she reached the porch. She noticed, with an odd feeling, a men's restroom sign posted proudly on the front door. She paused there, on the front step, before holding up one finger and slowly extending it toward the doorbell. The second before she made contact, she hesitated, took a deep breath, and jabbed her finger onto the button.

Nothing happened. Luz stood in front of the door awkwardly, wondering what to do now. A part of her had been hoping that no one would answer, but even so, she felt lost. What should she do? Should she ring again? She dismissed the idea; she didn't want to seem too pushy. She stood a second longer before she decided that it was likely that no one was home and turned to go.

And just as she did, she heard a small click behind her.

She turned around and came face to face with a doll.

Or, at least, it looked to her like a doll. But the longer she stared at it, the more uncertain she became of what exactly it was. It was small, slightly above her waist in height, and even more vividly green than ZIM. It looked like some sort of animal, possibly a dog. Its ears were black, as were its paws and nose, and even though it had four legs, like any other dog, it stood up on two, as naturally as if it did this everyday. One of its arms (there wasn't really a better word) was stretched out towards the door, and it appeared to be propping itself up against it. It held the door open only a crack, so Luz could not see inside. Its eyes were huge and seemed to almost pop out of its head. Its tongue was sticking out of its mouth.

One of the thing's most prominent qualities was that it was very obviously sewn together. A line of stitches ran through the middle of its head and down its back. Its green and black skin was devoid of fur and obviously made of cloth. The biggest clue to the thing's patched up nature was a huge silver zipper, with hung just under its chin. Luz could see the zigzag metal opening that ran underneath it very clearly. The though occurred to her that she could probably reach down and unzip the creature without it reacting at all.

But that wasn't the strangest thing about it.

No, the strangest, most bizarre quality of the thing was that it was unbearably adorable.

Luz didn't think she had ever seen anything so cute in her life. Something about the creature, its absent-minded gaze, its huge, rather cross-eyed eyes, its small red tongue, utterly disarmed her. All her fear was gone, replaced by a sort of happy, warm glow. Even through the warmth, Luz realized that this was unusual. Everything else about the house, even the house itself, impressed her as distorted and menacing, yet she couldn't find one frightening thing about this creature. She was sorely tempted to scoop it up into her arms and cuddle it.

"Aw," she cooed. "Hi there! What are you?"

The creature didn't seem to react to her words, but she saw its eyes move up and focus on her. Luz wasn't sure how it was possible, but with both of its large eyes fixed on her, the creature managed to become even cuter. Luz felt her heart swell in her chest a little.

"Oh my God, you are so adorable!" she cried happily. "What's your name?"

The creature didn't respond; Luz didn't really expect it to. She continued on.

"I don't mean to bother anybody. I'm not really sure why I'm here, to be honest. But, anyway, I was hoping I could talk to ZIM. Do you know where he is?"

No response. The creature continued to stare at her. Luz grew more hesitant. "Is he home right now?" she asked.

Still no response.

"Does he even live here?" she asked uncertainly.

Still no response. Luz began to feel awkward. She rubbed her arm a little. "I… I thought he did," she said, frowning. She began to ramble. "I guess I could've gotten the address wrong. But I checked; it matches the one in the directory. I don't know. Gosh, are you cute. Maybe I should - Oh, hello."

Luz had interrupted herself and was now looking down in surprise. The creature, apparently disinterested by her words, had bent down and was now messing around with her right foot. Luz stared, amused. "What are you doing?" she asked, smiling.

She might've have said something else, or perhaps moved her foot away, but she was quickly distracted by something. In bending over, the creature had revealed a small black tail, which wagged as it busied itself. Luz had to literally bite her lip and clamp her hand over her mouth to stop herself from squealing with happiness.

Meanwhile, the creature continued to fiddle with her foot. Luz felt a gentle tugging sensation, accompanied by tiny brushes and touches. "Hey! That tickles!" she giggled. She reached down and slowly laid one hand on top of the creature's head. It didn't seem to notice her touch. She rubbed her hand back and forth across its head. Its skin felt soft and plushy, like a stuffed animal.

"Do you belong to ZIM?" she asked, scratching behind one of its ears. "Are you his pet? Or maybe a toy? Ah!"

She stopped petting the creature and looked at it with interest. It was now tugging rather insistently on her shoe. Luz lifted her foot automatically at its pull, and in one smooth yank, her shoe was off her foot and in the creature's arms.

Both Luz and the creature looked at each other for a second. Then the creature popped the shoe in its mouth, gave Luz one final look, and ran inside and slammed the door.

It took Luz a moment to process what had just happened. "Hey!" she cried. "Wait a minute!" She rushed forward and grasped the door handle. The door was locked. She yanked the knob back and forth in its socket, but the door wouldn't budge. She began to pound on the door with her fists.

"Wait!" she kept shouting. "Come back! That's my… My…" All at once she stopped, her hands on the door. She stared at it, as if hoping it would swing away by itself and let her in. Her mind was in a blank. _How will I explain this to my parents? _kept sounding in her head.

She remained there, perfectly still, for a few more minutes, feeling herself to be a complete idiot. She leaned over and tried to look in through the window, but all she could see when she gazed into it was a sheet of purple and red glass. The windows, it seemed, were only one-way.

She rang the doorbell. Then, after a pause, again. No one came. She looked around the street. She looked up into the sky. She perceived that it was starting to get dark.

Finally, she slowly stepped down from the porch. She looked behind her, possibly hoping that someone, ZIM perhaps, would come out. But there was no sign. She walked slowly away, hobbling slightly.

* * *

"Hey, nice shoes Luz!"

"What's up with your shoes?"

"What are you wearing? Weirdo."

"Looking good, Platypus Girl!"

Luz glared as she walked to lunch the next day. Honestly, didn't anyone have anything better to talk about? The whole school seemed to be preoccupied with what she had on her feet, and she had had to endure stares and comments from her classmates ever since she had first stepped into the building that morning. Some of the comments were whispered behind her back, meant for her not to hear, but to see and to wonder at what they were talking about. Others were more vocal.

"What's wrong with your shoes?" asked Sara. They were in line, and Sara was right behind Luz with her tray, staring at her feet with disdain. "Did your mom forget to dress you this morning?"

"Hello, Sara," said Luz flatly. She collected the sludge from the dispensing machine onto her tray and walked out into the cafeteria, choosing to ignore her.

Luz had had to hobble all the way home from ZIM's house with only one shoe. The pebbles and gravel in the pavement had poked through her feet, hurting her slightly. Her parents had come home too late to buy her another pair, so she had had to compensate. Unfortunately, the only other pair of shoes she owned was a pair of thick snow boots, which went up almost to her knees. Not wanting to trek around in a pair of thick boots all day, Luz had put her remaining sneaker on one foot and one of the boots on the other. She regretted it as soon as she walked in the classroom. She had had to roll up her jeans to make room for the boot, which had only made it more noticeable. In addition, the heel on the boot was quite a bit thicker than the sole of her shoe, so she was taller on her right side and appeared to walk with a strange kind of limp.

She limped across the cafeteria, trying to keep her head up but failing. As she walked by, her eyes fell once again on the table where Dib sat with the younger girl. Dib was drinking a Poop Cola out of a straw. He raised his eyes in greeting as she walked by before they fell downwards towards her feet. He lifted one eyebrow questioningly. Luz grimaced slightly and walked on. She was approaching her normal table and was about to sit there when she stopped. Sara sat there. And more than just Sara, there were other girls there, too. Luz had talked to them before, sure, but she couldn't really call any of them her friends. They would probably tease her about her shoes some more, and Luz was getting pretty sick of people commenting on her shoes. She decided that, just for today, she should probably sit alone. She turned away and scanned the room, looking for a table that was empty. There wasn't one, but one table caught her eye.

The table was almost empty but not quite. One boy was sitting there.

That boy was ZIM.

Luz stared and thought for a moment. He was by himself. He was alone. Didn't he have any friends? She guessed not. ZIM was loud in class, but there was nothing friendly in his loudness. The boy sort of emitted a strong "don't touch me" vibe that severely reduced his appeal. Luz had thought she was the only one who was afraid of him, but it seemed none of the other children were keen to approach him either.

Luz felt a brief swell of pity, but she also saw an excellent opportunity. She needed more proof, more assurance, and there was the boy in question, completely alone and unoccupied. She could easily walk up and sit next to him. She wouldn't ask him if he was an alien, of course, but she could still talk to him, maybe get some clues. Now only one question remained: Was she brave enough?

Luz looked over at her normal table where the girls sat, staring and giggling, and then back over to ZIM. She weighed the options in her mind. A group of kids who might possibly tease and make fun of her or a boy who might possibly be a homicidal alien from outer space.

She decided to go with the alien.

She looked over at Dib and shot him what was supposed to be a confident "Watch this" kind of smile, and marched across the room to where ZIM sat.

ZIM was sitting at a table at the back of the room, two rows behind Dib. Dib looked after Luz as she walked by in the opposite direction, perplexed at first, then with horror as he realized where she was going. She frantically waved his hands in front of his throat in a clear _Stop! Don't!_ signal, but Luz just smiled and waved and kept on walking. Dib continued to watch her, looking horrified.

Luz walked around the table to the side where ZIM sat. She stood in front him, holding her tray in front of her, and smiled sheepishly. "Hi," she said. "Do you mind if I sit here?"

ZIM didn't seem to notice her walk up, so when she spoke, he gave a small start, hitting the table with his knee. He turned his head and shifted her eyes toward her in a position that reminded Luz of a hunted animal. "Ha? Wha-?" he exclaimed. "What did you say?"

"Uh, I was just asking if I could sit here," answered Luz, still nervous but also slightly bemused.

"What?" ZIM asked frantically. "Why? Who sent you?"

Luz laughed nervously. "No one sent me," she said, still trying to smile. "I just wanted to sit here." She waited for ZIM to say something else. When he didn't she cleared her throat. "So can I?"

"Can you what?"

"Sit here."

"Huh?" For some reason, ZIM seemed very distracted by something. "I… I suppose…" he said hesitantly.

"Thanks!" said Luz. She sat down.

There was a moment of awkward silence. It occurred to Luz that she had no plan of what to say to the boy. She sat in silence, sipping her juice box, trying to come up with something to say. It was a little difficult, though; she noticed that ZIM kept shifting his eyes to and away from her with a rather fearful expression on his face. Luz wondered why he was so jumpy and considered that maybe Dib was the cause. But she decided it would be unwise to bring up Dib right away.

"So…" said Luz after a moment. "What were you doing there?"

ZIM seemed greatly disturbed by this question. "Doing?" he repeated, his eyes shifting wildly around the room. "What do you mean?" He tried to smile at her innocently but instead produced an effect like an animal baring its fangs. Luz received a jolt when she saw his teeth. They were huge and their edges rose up and down in a smooth peg-like formation. Luz also noticed that there were no gaps between the teeth; it could be said that each row was just one big long tooth that ran across the curve of his mouth. She also noticed, with a twist in her stomach, his tongue, which was not like any she had ever seen. It was of a strange purplish color and was thin and pointed at the end, like a snake's. Or like a worm. Luz felt the bile rise up in her throat. She swallowed it back down and tried to smile back.

"Well," Luz began. "You were looking down a lot, and you didn't notice me walking over. You also seemed to be looking at something in your hand."

"Oh, that?" ZIM waved his hand in the air in an attempt to be dismissive. "That was nothing. It was merely, eh, my game device!" Luz had merely asked in an effort to start a conversation, but now she felt suspicious. Something about the way ZIM had said "My game device!" made it sound like he had just come up with those words, and he was rather proud of himself for thinking of them.

Luz raised an eyebrow, still smiling. "Oh, really?" she asked. "Can I see it?"

ZIM looked startled by her question. He gasped. "No!" he protested, waving his hands in front of him.

"Why not?"

"Because, it's, um, a secret! Yes! No one but a select few are allowed to play it!"

"Oh," said Luz, looking down at her juice box. "Must be a pretty cool game."

"No it isn't!" ZIM said frantically. "It's boring! Exceedingly boring! It's makes my organs rot with boredom…ness."

"Oh," said Luz again.

Another awkward moment of silence passed.

Luz took this moment to look over ZIM's appearance again. Now that she was sitting next to him, she noticed something else that she never had before: his backpack. That ZIM was wearing a backpack to lunch was odd enough, but that wasn't why Luz couldn't look away from it. It was gray with pink spots and had an odd, egg-like shape. It was also small, very small. It was about two-thirds the size of Luz's own. It also was (if Luz wasn't mistaken) made of metal. But none of these things bothered Luz as much as the fact that the backpack had no straps. None. It simply hung there, suspended on ZIM's back by its own power. This, coupled with its round shape, spots, and metallic sheen, made it look to her like the shell of some sleeping insect that had burrowed into ZIM and attached itself there.

She also noticed, as an afterthought, that ZIM hadn't touched the food on his plate. This was not nearly as odd.

"So, uh," began Luz, trying to start a conversation again. "How do you like Skool?"

"Oh!" said ZIM, trying and noticeably failing to sound enthusiastic. "Why it's an excellent place to learn – eh – brain things!"

"Is that so?" said Luz, noncommittally. "And how do you like the cafeteria food?"

ZIM smiled and patted his stomach with his hand as if in contentment. "Oh, it's delicious!" he said. "Absolutely wonderful. Why, these are the best foods I've ever tasted!"

"You haven't touched them," observed Luz.

ZIM gave a jolt, looked down at his full tray, and then back up at Luz with an expression of utmost panic. "I, uh, already ate. Earlier." He patted his stomach again and smiled nervously. "I'm afraid I can't eat another bite."

"Then why'd you buy so much?" asked Luz.

ZIM's panic grew noticeably, and his eyes moved wildly, as if searching for some solution. "Oh, well that's because of – HEY WHAT'S THAT!"

He pointed somewhere behind Luz. She turned around in her seat to look where he was pointing. As she did so, she heard a airy whistle, followed by a loud squelching sound, a metallic clang, and someone shouting "Hey!" Luz looked back at ZIM. His tray had disappeared. ZIM seemed immensely satisfied with himself. "Ah," he said. "That was good. Mmm-mmm."

Luz looked away from ZIM across the cafeteria. She noticed that three rows in front of them, there was child who seemed greatly surprised by something and whose entire head was covered with sludge. A messy, but mostly empty tray lay on the table directly behind this kid, with a trail of slime leading in an arc away from it.

Luz looked back at ZIM. Her suspicion of him was mounting, but, oddly, her fear of him seemed to be disappearing. She decided that it must have been the way he was acting. Something about his actions, his words, his voice, his very movements, struck her as very jittery and loud. He was full of energy, and something about his mannerisms made it difficult to really fear him. Luz felt herself smiling at him at times, strange as he was.

"So, ZIM," she said, trying out his name again. "Do you have any friends?"

ZIM looked at Luz and shuddered. "Ugh, no," she said. "Horrible pig-creatures, I'm better off without them!"

Luz frowned. "'Pig-creatures?'" she repeated. "Who do you mean?"

"You of course!"

Luz blinked, confused. "Me?"

ZIM rolled his eyes. "Well, not you specifically. All of you! You horrible children. You're all inferior, all worthless and full of filthy horrors! I tried having a friend, once." ZIM spat the word _friend_ in hatred. "It was horrible! It involved nothing but pain! And tetherball. I need no one! I operate alone!"

Luz wanted to say, _Alone? But what about your doll?_ But she thought better of it. It was likely that ZIM didn't know that she had stopped by his house. Instead she said, "But, I don't understand. 'You children'? Aren't you a kid, too?"

"What?" asked ZIM, not hearing her. Then her words registered in his mind, and his tone of voice immediately changed. "Oh!" he said. "I mean, of course! Yes! I am a normal child-beast-thing! I am inferior along with the rest of you! Yes! That it what I meant!"

"Alright, alright," said Luz. She was beginning to realize there was another reason that the other kids stayed away from him; having a conversation with ZIM was incredibly difficult. She decided to move on.

"So, no friends, huh?" she asked.

"No."

"Any acquaintances?"

"No."

"Do you ever talk to anyone?"

"Why should I?"

Luz thought for a moment and decided that maybe now was a good time to bring up Dib. Not to tell ZIM what he was up to, just to see his reaction. She tried to make her voice sound as casual as possible.

"Well, you might want to try it," she said innocently. "It can be interesting. I talk to people all the time."

"Do you?" asked ZIM, obviously not interested in the slightest.

"Yeah," said Luz. She looked across the aisle at Dib, who was still staring at the two of them. Probably, he had been watching them the entire time. She smiled at him and then continued. "Like, just the other day," she said slowly. "I was talking to this one kid, named, um, Dib-"

"LIES!"

Luz yelped in shock and jumped so badly that she fell off the bench. Whatever reaction she had been expecting from ZIM, it had not been that. At the precise moment that Luz had said the word _Dib,_ ZIM had screamed that word, "lies" and jumped up furiously. Luz looked up and saw that he was standing on his seat, looking down at her with the wild-eyed look of a serial killer in court. He was absolutely frantic.

"What-!" gasped Luz. "What-! Wha-!"

"LIES!" ZIM shrieked, pointing away from himself, in no direction in particular. "FILTHY LIES! HE'S MOCKING ME, I TELL YOU! MOCKING ME!"

"Okay!" cried Luz. "Okay! Just calm-!"

"HE'S A LITTLE LIAR! EVERYDAY, SPEWING HIS MISERABLE FILTH FROM THAT HOLE IN HIS OBSCENE HEAD! DON'T YOU DARE BELIEVE ONE WORD FROM HIS LYING MOUTH! HE'S A MISERABLE WORM! NO! LESS THAN A WORM! WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS, ACCUSING ME OF THESE THINGS! EVERYONE HE TALKS TO IS CONTAMINATED WITH HIS FILTH!"

"I didn't mean anything by it!" Luz protested frantically. "I was just-!"

"DAY IN AND DAY OUT HE STALKS ME! HE THINKS HE CAN DEFEAT ME! BUT HE'S INSANE I TELL YOU! INSANE! HE HAS NOTHING ON ME! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! JUST LOOK AT HIM OVER THERE, PRETENDING TO BE AN IMBECILE! LOOK AT HIM, NOW!"

At these words, ZIM reached down and grabbed a fistful of Luz's hair. Before Luz could say or do anything to resist, he yanked her up off the floor and grabbed her head in his hands. Luz noticed that the ends of his gloved hands were rather sharp and poked into her skin like claws.

He twisted her head and forced her gaze toward Dib, who was looking at them both with a furious expression on his face.

"SEE HIM! SEE HIM OVER THERE!"

"Yes, yes!" Luz cried. "I see him! Please let go of me!"

"Let her go, ZIM!" Dib shouted from across the room.

ZIM dropped Luz onto the ground and pointed furiously at Dib. "YOU DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" he screamed. "YOU'RE NOTHING, EARTH-STINK! NOTHING!"

"You keep saying that, ZIM!" yelled Dib. "But one day I'll expose you for the horrible monster that you are, and then everyone will be safe from your evil!"

"YOU! CAN'T! PROVE! ANYTHING!" ZIM screamed. "AND YOU CAN NEVER DEFEAT THE GREATNESS THAT IS _ZIIIIIIIIIIM!"_ With all the shouting going on, it was really amazing how little attention anyone was paying to this scene.

"Go ahead! Keep telling yourself that!" Dib shouted back. "But one day, you'll make a mistake, and when you do, I'll be there! And I'll be ready for it!"

"READY? YOU KNOW NOTHING OF READY! WHY, YOU MERELY-!"

And on and on they went, yelling at each other until both their throats were raw. Luz was all but forgotten. Luz, visibly shaken, took this moment to quietly crawl away.

* * *

Luz sat on the front porch on her house, wiggling her toes inside her new sneakers. Her mother had been able to come home early that day and had dropped off a brand new pair for her. They were still a little stiff, so Luz had come outside to try to loosen them.

She often sat by herself like this, staring at nothing in particular. At these times she allowed her mind to become a blank slate, enjoying the sensations around her without actually feeling them, simply allowing herself to relax.

And she would have been relaxing now; that is what she had come outside to do. But today, it seemed, there was simply to much in her mind for her to drown it all out. ZIM. ZIM. There was definitely something strange about him. Luz rubbed an area on her cheek where he had grabbed her. It still smarted slightly. She had looked in the mirror and noticed six little red dots where his fingers had poked into her skin. Six dots. Six fingers. Luz shook her head. He had to be an alien. He had to be. Try as she might, she couldn't find any evidence in her mind that he wasn't. Not one thing about was normal. She thought back to the scene in the cafeteria. No kid acted like that. No kid spoke like that. And the house! And his clothes! And the doll! He was definitely something, if not an alien.

And yet. Luz couldn't shake the one nagging shred of doubt left in her mind. She wanted to believe, she really did, but that one shred was getting in her way. It irritated and troubled her.

Another thing that troubled her was Dib. Her feeling of pity grew. He and ZIM seemed to know each other very well. The way they had screamed at each other! For a time, Luz had toyed with the idea that maybe ZIM didn't know that Dib had been obsessing over him, but now Luz knew that she had been stupid for thinking that. ZIM knew about Dib, alright. He hated him. And Dib hated ZIM, as well. The look of pure loathing on each other's faces as they had yelled at each other was unmistakable.

Even though he hadn't done anything but tell ZIM to stop, Luz still felt something of admiration for Dib. In her eyes, Dib's shouting had become an act of heroism. Maybe it wasn't the action itself that impressed her, but the circumstances behind it. Dib had been ridiculed and put down by everyone else in the school for trying to "stop ZIM." And no one, it seemed, was helping him. But even then, he had stood up to ZIM without hesitating. That was courage that Luz wasn't sure that she had.

She rubbed her forehead with her hand and murmured, musing to herself. She decided that she had too much to think about to truly relax, stood up, and would've gone inside right then, but then she stopped.

Something had caught her eye.

It was just on the edge of dusk. In the far west, the sky still retained its blood-red hue, but as the light moved across the plain of the sky, the colors melted into purple, then black in the far east. Shining among the black, in faint yet unmistakable points of white, were a few scattered stars.

It was these stars that caught Luz's attention.

She gazed at them for a long moment, her senses lost in wonder. Twinkling faintly up in the black, they seemed to be communicating with one another. Luz stared at them for a long time before lowering her head and going inside.

A moment later, she came back out, with a key in one hand and her directory in the other. She turned around and locked the door behind her, then walked down the street.

She wasn't exactly sure why, she didn't know what feeling was prompting her, but at the sight of those stars, she had been possessed by one thought: to go to ZIM's house.

She didn't know why she would want to go to ZIM's house, either. She didn't really expect to find anything more there. After all, she had already been there once, what could going there a second time accomplish?

But the idea wouldn't leave her, so she continued on.

By the time she was within a block of it, she was running.

She turned the corner onto the cul-de-sac and saw it. Against the twilit sky, it looked even more sinister, like a rusty blade to stab the sky. There was no porch light to be seen, the house was dark, its form barely discernible in the shadows, and yet the same red and purple light shone out of its windows. Luz shivered with fear and awe.

She had decided, halfway to the house, that she would not ring the doorbell again. Though she had no qualms about seeing the doll again, she couldn't predict what else it would do. And if ZIM answered the door… She shook her head. After the scene in the cafeteria, it simply wouldn't do. And at this late hour, no doubt all kinds of questions would come up.

No, she wouldn't go up to the house. Instead, she found some bushes by the sidewalk and crouched down there.

And there she waited.

Gradually, the sky grew darker as the night advanced. The blackness around Luz grew more and more until finally it was dark, and not a bit of sun could be seen. The streetlights flickered on, and their circles of light on the sidewalk burned with an orange glow. Luz began to feel uneasy. It was late, and she was beginning to feel afraid, not to mention a little dirty. She felt like a prowler, waiting outside ZIM's house at night. If anyone found her out here, what would she say? She was about to give up on it and go home.

And then the streetlights went out.

Luz blinked, startled at the sudden onset of blackness. Her vision had become used to the light, and when it vanished, she was suddenly blind. After a moment her vision cleared, and she looked around anxiously.

There was no one around her. There had been no buzz, no flare, nothing to indicate that the streetlights were broken. They had simply gone out, all at once, like a single light bulb turned off by a switch. Luz shuddered and crouched down lower. Whatever had turned out those lights, she didn't want it to see her. She regretted coming out here, and yet she felt exhilarated. She would have felt disappointed if the lights came on again.

Suddenly, there was a sound like a hum in the air. Luz looked up and around for the source of the sound. It appeared to be coming from everywhere at once. Then, gradually, it focused itself, and Luz realized where it was coming from.

It was coming ZIM's house.

As Luz stared, shocked, the humming grew more high-pitched. She heard another sound, a loud groan, like the turning of hidden gears inside of a wooden box. This sound accompanied the other sound, and rather than drowning it out, only served to make it louder. The silhouette of the house against the backdrop of the stars served as the conductor of these sounds.

Then Luz saw a sight that would remain with her for the rest of her life.

She saw the shadowed roof of the house split down the middle and open, like the jaws of a leviathan. The two halves of the triangle opened wider and wider apart, until they were connected only by a single hinge. Then, as Luz watched, terrified and amazed, an object rose out of the maw and hovered there above it.

It was small and rounded and stood out dimly purple against the white and black of the sky. It looked to Luz like a beetle, a large, purple, jeweled beetle, hovering above the mouth of a serpent.

It remained there for only a moment, hovering, before a purple light shone from behind it, and it started forward, smooth and graceful, yet breathlessly fast.

As it passed by, Luz felt a wave of wind sweep the leaves and grass in a torrent. Her hair blew into her face and her shirt fluttered against her. A sound like speed followed it, and grew loud as it passed her. It faded away with it, following it into the night.

And Luz realized where the hum had come from.

Luz didn't wait for the lights to come back on. She got up and ran, ran as fast as she could, half expecting herself to lift up and soar away just like it had. Even when she tripped, she didn't linger, but got up and ran just as fast as before. She didn't stop until she got home. Her heart was pounding the entire way.

Only when she had bolted inside the house and slammed the door behind her did she finally scream.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Argh, I'm tired. Sorry that the chapter is a day late. I wasn't feeling well this week and had trouble motivating myself enough to write. But I'm feeling much better now, so, if school well behave itself, I should update regularly.

Or something.

A lot of this chapter is basically long descriptions of things that in all fairness you should already know what they look like. But, it couldn't be helped. I felt it was important to include Luz's first impressions of these things, and the descriptions were part of that. It really couldn't be helped, and I'm sorry. So, if you skipped those sections, know that I don't blame you.

And if you didn't skip them, know that I am grateful.

I was probably planning to say something else, but now I don't remember what it is. Oh, well. Enjoy!

Oh, yes! InvaderCON is this weekend! Congratulations to all you lucky people who get to go!


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